When asked to recall the glorious glory days of West Indies cricket, Lance Gibbs breaks into a smile.
After all, it’s hard to suppress anything less than a wistful grin reminiscing about some of the greatest teams ever to grace the grand old game.
Everton Weekes. Gary Sobers. Viv Richards. Malcolm Marshall. Brian Lara. Gibbs himself. The list is long and legendary.
It was an era of pride, power, and exuberant skill. Arguments in the boardroom may have been prevalent (the construction of the WI Board hasn’t changed since 1927), yet there were no garish attempts to hold people to ransom. No ducking out of Test cricket to gorge on riches elsewhere.
Of course, the modern game is a totally different, cash-rich beast, spawned by the brute force of Twenty20. Yet, when it comes to representing such a proud collective of islands like the West Indies, shouldn’t pride in wearing the shirt surpass all? Clearly not.
Chris Gayle may have already lit up the World T20, yet his absence from the West Indies five-day setup is a stark reminder of today’s priorities. Arguments over money are commonplace. Poor administration haunts the Windies. A blind arrogance also holds progress back.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has consistently rejected the findings of three separate reports over nine years into the governance of Caribbean cricket. Nothing wrong here; please move along. It’s a joke. Yet no one is laughing.
Their Test team barely deserves to be on the same pitch as their predecessors, let alone represent the same nation.
“The first tour I went on was to India in 1958-59,” Gibbs told Sport360 as we recently met at a legends match in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, organised by former Windies batsman, Lawrence Rowe who runs his own foundation (lawrencerowe.org).
“We got a pound a day. I can’t remember how I spent it, but money never meant anything to us. We were ambassadors of the Caribbean.
The federations failed us, but cricket is something we cherish and love.”
So how does Gayle’s decision to turn his back on Tests sit with the man who became the first spinner to snare 300 wickets?
“It’s a disgrace,” he said. “You have to look at it in certain ways. The U-15 cricketer now, if the board is looking after you all the way through the system, that costs close to $1 million. If you have gone through that whole system, you shouldn’t be ungrateful now.
“Putting everything into perspective, as far as the boards are concerned, if you go to a cricket ground in the West Indies it’s hard to get people to pay to go in. If the team is winning, you will get the support.
“It’s a very difficult job for (chief selector) Clive Lloyd, and when you look at the structure of the board, it always will be that way.”
There are myriad factors involved when attempting to dissect the problems of cricket in the Caribbean and its inexorable decline. As in all sports, success is cyclical. To think the Calypso kings didn’t lose a Test series for 15 years between 1980 and 1995, it really is quite remarkable. The likes of Curtley Ambrose, Lara, Courtney Walsh, Joel Garner, and Richards, et al, were irreplaceable. The Windies aren’t alone, however – look how Australia’s dominance plunged since Shane Warne and friends hung up their spikes.
Inherent problems in cricket governance have also caused havoc.
With 16 nations falling under the Windies flag, there are self-serving player call-ups at every corner. Selection meetings must be an absolute nightmare.
“If you look at Australia, they have South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria. They are all Australians. When we go to select teams, they are all from independent countries.
“There’s a selector from Trinidad, one from Guyana, one from Jamaica. They want to push their own guys. The best team is never selected,” added Gibbs.
Make no mistake, cricket is loved. The so-called preference of American sports is overplayed. The crack of leather on willow is in the blood. Though with poverty levels rising, who can blame a young player for structuring a career, focussed on finance rather than five-fors?
One must remember that the state of world cricket isn’t balanced. With India, Australia, and England controversially agreeing to share the power between themselves, the rest of the pack, predictably, suffer. The shock to the system ensures the Windies will be $42 million worse off. That kind of money simply isn’t generated elsewhere.
Walking out of the tour of India in 2014, following yet another grizzly pay dispute, enraged the omnipotent BCCI and left the West Indies in debt to the Indian bosses to the tune of $42m.
And with the ‘Big Three’ enjoying a series of windfalls, while their own domestic competitions become stronger, so, too, does the lure for West Indian master blasters like Gayle to turn his back on home and go elsewhere.
A trickle-down effect blights everything. Poor facilities and slow pitches stunt growth. The bouncy fast tracks which helped Ambrose learn his trade are no more.
If a downtrodden Test team is regularly getting hammered over three days, unsurprisingly, there’s less determination from the most powerful cricketing nations to meet the Windies in the longest form of the game.
Torrid relations between the WICB and the players ensure square one is often revisited. Yet, out of the darkness shines some light.
A report into the organisation of Caribbean cricket last year has led to significant reforms of domestic cricket. The WICB brought in 90 contracts for domestic players who now train full-time; the amount of first-class matches has increased from six to 10.