The last place you’d like to spend your time on the beautiful Caribbean islands is inside the office of a cricket board, filled with stuffy suits and granddaddy attitudes. But I check in. I have to, because I still haven’t got an answer to that burning question: why were the West Indian legends ignored during the opening ceremony of the World Cup? Inside, there is this tall, distinguished-looking gentleman, impeccably dressed, lording over a crowd of local reporters. It’s Kenneth Gordon, the head honcho of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB); he’s grandly unveiling a mega blueprint—to set up a committee to “look at restructuring the administration, tap markets in North America.” Every word of wisdom is noted down, I can’t control my anger. I butt in: “But Mr Gordon, why were the West Indian legends ignored?” Silence, a lady reporter clears her throat. Gordon impales me with a stare, then tries to swat me aside with this reply: “We had to be conscious of the time factor. In an opening, there are so many things to be done. We didn’t want to just quickly rush through such an important thing as honouring our past players.” Would you believe that! I don’t. I try again: But wasn’t the opening ceremony of the Caribbean’s first World Cup the best possible opportunity? “Well, that may well have been so. But we all have to determine how we are going to work with the limited resources given the time we had to do these things and to give a certain balance. We decided it would be better to do it (just before the opening game). You may not agree with it but it was the conclusion we arrived at,” replies Gordon, then turns his head away. I seethe my way through the farce that unfolds then: how the West Indies board would tap the market of Indian, Pakistani and West Indies immigrants in the US and Canada, how a three-man committee, headed by a former prime minister, would “tell us what is wrong with West Indies cricket, where it is headed.” Now I know why a former West Indian cricketing great, who shall remain unnamed, dropped this one-liner last week: “The West Indian loves his cricket as much as he hates the people who run it.” Over the last 15 years, their cricket has been run to the ground, the team has just about begun to regain some of that tattered pride and here, they are talking of “remodelling the structure of the board, if needed”. Anyway, my questions seem to have had an effect on someone. Not Mr Gordon, but a young, lady reporter from the local Observer newspaper. She wants an interview. Soon, another reporter walks up, from Radio Jamaica, he wants me on air. We are joined by a TV jockey now, Miss McLeod, she wants me on a show, too. Well, well, well. Let’s just put it this way: I didn’t say no. Obviously, I had managed to hit a raw nerve, somewhere. But then, my team is India, I have to go. Maybe, one of these young reporters will take up the cause. I hope they do. Vivian Richards, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Gordon Greenidge, and the rest deserve an apology. At the very least. Don’t you think so?
