West Indies and the USA will jointly be hosting the ICC’s 2024 T20 World Cup next June, less than a year from now. As the T20 format’s only major tournament to be played within the region between now and then, this year’s eleventh edition of the annual “Biggest Party In Sport,” Caribbean Premier League (CPL) has, therefore, assumed added significance, in more ways than one. Not just as the final opportunity for Caribbean-born participating players to state their cases for potential West Indies World Cup squad inclusion, but also for the region itself to demonstrate its administrative readiness to fully capitalize on all the available benefits that can be derived from hosting such a marquee tournament, upon which the entire cricket world will be focussed.
Against such a backdrop of major significance this year’s CPL, as evidenced by its St Lucia-hosted opening round matches, has gotten off to a very uncertain start. From strident-voiced commentators repeatedly engaging in the redundancy of mentioning players “returning back,” through to the unprecedented, simply unbelievable, occurrence of the West Indies white-ball cricket Head Coach Daren Sammy, opting to retain his identical position for the St Lucia Kings, this year’s CPL has already and unmistakeably assumed all the fundamental characteristics of a bona fide comedy show!
As if those two occurrences weren’t sufficient to label CPL’23 to date as borderline comical, the cricket itself has generally been of an astonishingly low standard with spilled rudimentary catches having been the inevitable order of the day. Alzarri Joseph must now surely believe that clean bowled and lbw are the only two viable modes of dismissal available to him. That many catches have already been dropped off his bowling. There has also been the spectacle of at least three of the six participating franchise teams, namely the Barbados Royals, Guyana Amazon Warriors, and St Lucia Kings, fielding unfit and visually obese players.
The now disturbingly overweight Rakheem Cornwall, the Barbados Royal’s opening batter, being run out off only the second ball he faced in their match against the St Lucia Kings was sufficiently comical to have gone viral on social media. Most appropriately it has also since been described as the laziest runout ever in T20I cricket history!
Much for the Caribbean cricket community, therefore, to be already concerned about as a consequence of CPL’23 St Lucia-hosted opening round matches. Only two of which were played. The remaining four were sufficiently rain affected to be rendered as No Result affairs. Much to the despair of the participating players, officials, and the disappointingly way-below-capacity crowds who ventured through the Daren Sammy Stadium’s turnstiles as paying spectators.
Astonishingly it would appear as though neither Daren Sammy himself, anyone from within CPL’s hierarchy, the television commentators, or even Cricket West Indies have appreciated the inherent conflict of interest that has unquestionably resulted from his retention of the St Lucia Kings Head Coach duties. The conflict of interest has, of course, arisen from the reality that not only is Sammy now also the West Indies white-ball cricket Head Coach, under which umbrella falls all T20 matches, but he is also, even more importantly, a West Indies Selector for the format.
As West Indies Head Coach and Selector, and with the team scheduled to be automatic qualifiers to next year’s Caribbean and USA jointly hosted ICC T20 World Cup, Sammy’s primary responsibility should now be as a scout for the players who will best represent the region at that tournament. His sole job at this year’s CPL should be as an objective, wholly unbiased observer, watching every one of the matches, again the last of sufficient significance to be held within the Caribbean before next year’s World Cup, on the lookout for worthwhile contenders for West Indies squad inclusion!
How can he perform any such duties while simultaneously serving as the St Lucia Royals Head Coach? That is the question that begs to be asked but which, again unbelievably, has seemingly completely escaped all concerned, including, Sammy himself!
For all his inadequacies, which eventually resulted in his resignation from the position, Phil Simmons never once found it necessary or convenient to also serve as Head Coach of his native Trinidad & Tobago Knight Riders, while being the holder of the identical role for the West Indies. Indeed, as previously mentioned, such an occurrence as Sammy’s is not only most likely unprecedented in West Indies cricket history, but also arguably even anywhere else in the entire world.
The Daren Sammy dual Head Coach fiasco is but the latest provided evidence of the reality that West Indies cricket has now lost its moral compass. Its administrators clearly can now longer distinguish what is right from that which is fundamentally wrong!
West Indies cricket has now surely entered an era of such low standards that previously unthinkable, wholly unacceptable abnormalities as Head Coaches fulfilling dual roles, obviously unfit, obese players donning representative maroon colors, and sponsor’s logos being routinely taped onto the backs or masking tape covered on the front of team shirts for all the world to see have long since become the norm. The same standards which have now fallen so low as to allow players with grossly subpar averages to be continuously chosen to represent the once proud, now often humiliated, West Indies in all three of international cricket’ presiding formats.
Thankfully, if “Double Duty” Daren Sammy does somehow manage to assume a degree of objectivity that would allow him to view the performances of all Caribbean-born players at this year’s CPL without any bias, he and his fellow West Indies Selectors Chairman Desmond Haynes and Roland Butcher would have had a fair bit to be heartened by so far. In particular, as maligned as they have been for his inclusion in the West Indies T20 squad for the recently concluded series against India, Haynes, Butcher, and Sammy should now all be almost ecstatic over Roston Chase’s performances in St Lucia King’s first three matches for this year’s CPL.
Chase has undoubtedly been this year’s standout Caribbean-born player so far. He has scored one fifty as a batter and taken a three-for with his off-spin bowling. He has also been a virtual livewire in the field having already taken one of the very best catches in the entire tournament.
How Chase fares over the remaining matches will be interesting to see. No less so though than the performances of Evin Lewis, Fabian Allen, Oshane Thomas, and Hayden Walsh. All of whom have been excluded from the West Indies T2oI set up within recent times for one reason or the other, but whose respective, if at top form, inclusions would undoubtedly be of immense value to the West Indies team’s improved fortunes.
There are also quite a few emerging players that the West Indies Selectors will undoubtedly be keeping their eyes on. Kirk McKenzie looked exceptionally good during his time at the crease in his debut outing for the defending champions Jamaica Tallawahs. So too did Jair McAllister in the one over he bowled for the St Lucia Kings in their rain-affected match against the Guyana Amazon Warriors. An encounter that was initially reduced to a five-over affair before being eventually completely abandoned altogether before the host’s response even got started.
McAllister’s demonstrated pace set tongues wagging. Many an optimistic Caribbean cricket fan might now, therefore, be licking their chops and entertaining fantasies of the West Indies fielding a real pace attack of Joseph, Thomas, and McAllister very soon. Far from the fabled four-prong for sure, but potentially with sufficient venom to cause severe discomfort among opposing batters.
Whether Thomas and McAllister can demonstrate any early signs during this year’s CPL of their capacity to fulfill such lofty ambitions in the near future will be interesting to see. So too will be whether the tournament itself can get back to much firmer footing in its remaining rounds, or if those matches will also provide even further fodder of an unfortunately comical nature!