this amnesty is key for windies
Tim Wigmore welcomes a softening of the WICB stance which will allow their big names back into the international fold
How can you compete in international cricket if you can’t field your strongest team? Such has been the West Indies’ plight in the age of domestic T20 leagues.
So while the West Indies at full strength in the shortest format remain brilliant – they have won two of the last three World T20 titles and reached the semi-finals in the other – they have floundered in bilateral cricket. Often, they have fielded what amounts to a 2nd XI with a couple of first-team ringers, while their real stars are elsewhere.
When the West Indies were thrashed in their Test series in Australia in 201516, six of their leading players were in the country at the same time – but playing in the Big Bash League instead.
Little wonder that the West Indies have slipped to eighth in the Test rankings and ninth in one-day international cricket, where they have performed so abjectly that they failed to qualify for this summer’s Champions Trophy.
Now, their spot in the 2019 World Cup is imperilled too:West Indies face entering a cut-throat qualifying tournament in which ten countries will compete for the final two spots in the World Cup.
So good news for Caribbean cricket was overdue. It was welcome indeed that Johnny Graves, the new chief executive, has worked to establish a new deal with the West Indies’ globe-trotting T20 stars.
The hardline, self-defeating selection policy – whereby only players who featured in the West Indies’ domestic 50-over competition could be picked for the West Indies in ODIs, meaning leading players were ineligible as they were playing in the Big Bash instead – is being ripped up.
In its place, an amnesty has been agreed between the board and the players’ union.
Hopefully, it is just the start. For years the need for white ball contracts in the Caribbean has been clear. These could be in place imminently, giving West Indies’ limited overs specialists security and meaning they won’t be as inclined to play in every T20 tournament – even when these involve missing internationals.
A proper contract system would not only help the West Indies field stronger teams, but make their players better-prepared. Before a T20I in the UAE against Pakistan last year, Dwayne Bravo only arrived in the country the day before the game; no surprise, then, that the West Indies were promptly thrashed 3-0, six months after winning the WT20 crown.
Limiting contracts to those who play Test cricket, as the West Indies have done until now, has been absurd and deeply counterproductive, especially when combined with the ham-fisted selection policy.
The West Indies have always been vulnerable to their players earning more by representing someone else: Garry Sobers almost played in English league cricket in 1963 instead of for the region; there were two rebel tours to apartheid South Africa in the Eighties, exploiting fringe players’ financial insecurity.
Rather than appeals to romance, the WICB need to recognise the financial realities for their players and – like New Zealand, a board with a similar turnover – be more pragmatic. New Zealand picked a second string side for their recent triseries against Bangladesh and Ireland, while their leading players were earning riches in the IPL: far from ideal, but infinitely preferable to pushing stars into premature retirement and losing them altogether.
Signs of a rapprochement are good news for English cricket fans, who might now see Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Marlon Samuels play for the West Indies in their ODI series in England this summer after all. Much more importantly, they suggest that the West Indies may finally cease to be their own worse enemy.