The Windies pull-out: A justified move?
I’m alarmed at the sheer amount of controversies popping out of cricket’s closet. It used to be match-fixing in the early years of the twenty-first century, followed by the spot-fixing and betting saga that engulfed the Indian Premier League (IPL) and spread to all corners of the cricketing world, and now the pull-out of the Caribbean Kings from the tour of India mid-way. While neither occurrence has been good for the game, there’s something that’s making the parties involved in these incidents behave the way they have done, and it doesn’t reflect well upon them.
More than the acrimony surrounding the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the national side, what is more worrying is the shambolic state of affairs that has reduced the Calypso champions of the seventies and eighties into pitiful shadows of their former selves. The likes of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Curtly Ambrose, Richie Richardson, etc., have been so pained at the current crisis, but even their pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears. The end result is right in front of us.
So, what justifies the players’ move to pull out of the India tour? Is running away the best answer? Or did Dwayne Bravo and Co., let pride get in their way? Who’s more responsible for this mess – the Board or the players?
Here are some of the reasons why I think the players are justified in their response:
Absence of a fixed fee
The crux of this entire sordid saga lies in the fact that there was no fixed remuneration offered to the squad in the weeks leading up to the tour of the subcontinent. Quite simply, if you are offered a job without any concrete payment terms, you wouldn’t choose to take it. Services can neither be offered free nor at rates lower than what your experience or skills command. Every professional knows that. Every administrator knows it, too.
So, what’s wrong with offering a fixed set of fees to the players? They ought to have known how much they would be getting if they were going to spend time away from their homes, in a different environment, because that’s their job as professionals. Then comes the issue of the Board’s rather strange decision to offer the team a pay cut. Even so, each player agreed to this, as well, provided the $35000 USD difference was made up in their salaries earned from playing in other formats.
Where I think some blame lies is the fact that the team jetted off to India without finalizing the agreement in writing. Their reaction on seeing the new payment terms was, therefore, very much on expected lines. Never begin a job without first deciding how much you’re worth in monetary terms. In effect, most of the squad felt slighted at the decision of their representative Wavell Hinds to agree upon an amount that was reduced by nearly 70%. No self-respecting individual would like that, and hence the outcome was a sign of revolt – the only way they could protest. In short, they have been hung out to dry as Michael Holding rightly stated.
The Board and Union’s illogical rationale
The strangest portion of this entire episode is the fact that the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) proposed a pay cut to the entire set of cricketers on the premise that domestic cricket across the island nations needed the money more than them. At first glance, it seems to be an altruistic, even generous, move on their part; at the very least, youngsters would get a chance to take up the game rather than fall into the habit of doing drugs.
Then it struck me – the WICB has the Caribbean Premier League, the Regional Four-Day Competition and the NAGICO Super50 One-Day Competition in place. There is a very fair bit of sponsorship in each of these tournaments. So, why subject all the international players to a pay cut? What about folks like Denesh Ramdin, who haven’t got an IPL contract?
In the WICB’s quest to ensure cricket’s popularity across all the islands that form the entire West Indies, it has used the WIPA as a tool to carry out its dirty work. What else can be expected from them? By calling for a pay cut and not finalizing player salaries until they arrived in India, I suspect the targets of the Board must have been those cricketers who have chosen to ply their trade across the world as guns-for-hire or mercenaries – working only for the highest payers. Twisted logic, this!
Inefficient Player Representation and poor communication
I’m not at all impressed with Hinds’ decision to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the WICB, without first conveying the players’ request of having the difference in pay made up through small increments in their salaries earned from playing across different formats. Conspiracy theorists – if there are any at the moment – might allege that Hinds is simply looking for payback after having been dumped out of the side four years ago.
But, as the president of the WIPA, the Jamaican has made a complete mess of negotiations with the WICB by what I term as pandering to the wishes of Dave Cameron & Co., instead of voicing players’ concerns and Bravo’s demand for a comparative analysis of both the old and the new payment structures in order to work out a deal that is mutually beneficial for all sides. Adding insult to injury, he signed the MoU without any written undertaking from the players. That’s not something you expect from a players’ representative.
In my opinion, the impasse could be resolved by establishing clear communication lines between all parties involved. Secondly, any payment decisions must be taken based on analytical reasoning, not by an illogical bent of mind. Lastly, the players’ representative must be someone like Holding, who won’t succumb to the Board’s wishes as Hinds did. Until then, the repercussions of the players’ revolt will be felt heavily across all corners, because you never cross swords with the richest and most powerful cricket board in the world – the BCCI. For everyone’s sake, I hope the standoff ends soon.