By Ray Ford
This coming March or April – whenever the elections
for president will be, West Indies cricket will again
reach a fork in the road. Will those who are tasked
with administering it choose a president from among those
in its smoke-filled window-shuttered room? Or, will they
raise the blinds and look around? Because by adhering to
the former, and for the last twenty-eight (28) years, our
cricket, if not on a downward spiral, surely has been on a
glidepath.
Like with an orchestra, entities take their cue from their
conductor. Conductors surely can’t play every instrument.
But they can signal who should come in and when. And in
the end, mellifluous music will be played. A West Indies
cricket president can’t be expected to know in-depth,
every discipline to run the outfit. But he or she should know
what to emphasize and what not to, so that in the end,
stakeholders will again begin to experience outright joy,
knowing that our cricket is heading in the right direction.
For the longest while, for West Indies cricket supporters,
this has not been the case. And for the longest while, the
operatives who elect West Indies presidents, have been
picking from the same barrel. The time has now come, to
do things a bit differently. And what sort of president might
West Indies cricket need at this particular juncture?
Last October, I was at a cricket match at Kensington Oval.
And quite impromptuly, I was cornered by a group of
Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) directors and asked
what was I about. I began by saying that I was passionate
about West Indies cricket, and was immediately stopped
in my tracks. “Everybody is passionate about West Indies
cricket,” said one. “But what can you do for us?” And that
was a good assertion followed by a welcomed question.
Nevertheless, passion is an important ingredient for being
successful at a job. Because, it’s always better to bring
love to the table, than to come, looking for money. And
in so saying, ever since I saw my first cricket Test match,
I’ve made a good attempt to see a Test whenever a home
series is on. Besides, who would have gone to see a Benson
and Hedges World Series Cup in Australia on a wing and a prayer,
forty-one (41) years ago? But what-else besides passion for West Indies cricket, am I bringing to the table?
At least one of our brighter intellectual stars has proclaimed that West Indies cricket as we once knew it, is dead.
“West Indies cricket has become a morbid curiosity for many, like
sneaking a peak while passing by a bad car accident,” wrote Chris
Dehring – former Cricket World Cup 2007 CEO, in his Jamaica
Observer op-ed of February 27th last. I happen to believe differently.
Because if sports as some say, is the nexus of culture and politics, then what would following Dehring’s suggestion mean for the Caribbean, seeing that cricket is the only glue holding regional sports together?
And so, I believe in both the concept and the importance of West
Indies cricket to the Caribbean. A strong belief fuels passion, and
passion fuels strong advocacy. But here are a few other things.
In making the rounds through the Caribbean so far, I sense considerable apathy among principals in West Indies cricket. And when I asked questions like `how-come’ and `why-not’, very often the responses were either that some things were cast in stone and could not be done differently, or that some things were too difficult to take-on. And when it comes to taking-on challenges, I subscribe to neither school of thought. If I did, then I’d never have taken on staging that star-studded invitational cricket match at the Kirkvine Sports Club in Manchester, Jamaica back in 1981, or return to graduate school in 2017.
West Indies cricket leadership needs some fearlessness and boldness. And a sense of fearlessness, boldness, and not settling for things as they are which aren’t working, are in my
DNA. For instance, I’ve been told that appealing to the International Cricket Council for a fairer
share of revenues is a non-starter. But assembling a financial team to do just that, will be, as stated in my manifesto under `Governance’, one of my first orders of business.
Other dragons to be slayed once and for all, include the quality of cricket pitches in the Caribbean. Towards that end, I’ve already engaged academics who study soil-types for a living.
We cannot continue to waste time revisiting the same issues year after year. And to better leverage the West Indies cricket brand, I’m also already reaching out to professionals in that
area, for input. In addition, we cannot throw up our hands and say, traveling-logistics within the Caribbean is the most expensive in the world, and leave it at that. The question will then be
asked: What are we doing about it? Also, despite the growing presence of competing sports, we will be making a concerted effort to make cricket a favorite sport among youngsters. Only then
will the pipeline nurturing and producing top-class cricketers, again begin to flow.
If the game in the Caribbean is to realize an upward inflexion, then another imperative for West Indies cricket will be to find a leader who firmly believes that it will be our prowess at Test
cricket which will float all other boats. Granted, white-ball cricket – particularly T20, helps to fill our coffers and is the flavor of the day.
But as ESPNcricinfo’s editor-in-chief Sabit Bal wrote
at new-year, building a nation’s cricketing foundation on T20 cricket, is akin to building a house on shifting sand. For West Indies cricket, our goalposts seem to have been moved, as one CWI
operative who should know better, recently bragged of our headcounts in franchise cricket. And then shortly after, when up against first-class opposition in Tests, we were cruelly exposed.
Make no mistake, if elected CWI president, I’ll be building our cricket on a firm foundation.
But who is Ray Ford? And why does he think that regarding re-floating West Indies cricket, he and his team have the ability to create necessary partnerships with territorial cricket boards to
effect these changes?
Besides having a passion and a vision
for West Indies cricket as discussed
above, I am equipped with the right
set of tools.
In West Indies cricket circles, my name
might not be a household one. But one
has to know something about cricket
to have had his work published in
The Cricketer International magazine
edited by Christopher Martin-Jenkins,
and to have written op-eds and to
have covered Test matches for Red
Stripe Caribbean Cricket Quarterly
edited by Tony Cozier.
I began doing the former in February 1986 and the
latter in December 1993. And among
those Test matches for which my
copy was used, was that famous West
Indies win over Australia at Sabina
Park in March 1999.
Allied to my passion and vision for,
and to my knowledge of the West
Indies cricket-game, is my academic
background. This includes an MBA
in Marketing https://www.egr.
msu.edu/notables/cl ass-notes/
raymond-ford with a specialty in
International Business. Armed with
it, I’m conversant with all aspects of
business, and am secure enough in
my skin, to engage transparently in
discourse with any and everybody
who has ideas on resuscitating West
Indies cricket. And it’s not that I
haven’t lent support to presidential
candidacies before mine https://
www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/
put-off-that-wicb-election/ or lent
advice to newly elected cricket board
presidents https://caribbeancricket.
com/news/2006/10/32/3835, but
enough is enough. My time has now
come!
If not now, then when? And if not me,
then who?
Ray Ford is a West Indies cricket
stakeholder running for President of
Cricket West Indies