Tony Becca
WEST INDIES Cricket Board president Ken Gordon has received kudos, a whole lot of it, for his address to the Barbados Chamber of Commerce over a week ago, and he certainly deserves all of it.
In a wide-ranging speech in which he touched on some of the problems of West Indies cricket, Gordon was good - and no better than when he spoke about West Indies cricket, why it is where it is, and how it can be improved.
"The problems which exist are not of recent vintage," said Gordon. "They go back to the era when we dominated the game and thought that we would always continue to do so."
According to Gordon, there appeared to be an unending reservoir of talent. Because of that, "those who were charged with the responsibility of leading West Indies cricket at that time failed to understand that the other teams would not continue to lie down and play dead", and as the fans around the region, probably around the world, will agree, that was so true.
GORDON ON THE BALL
Gordon was also on the ball when he likened the West Indies present situation to what he said economists call the vicious cycle of poverty - a cycle that, among other things, has left us with the problem of leadership, with a team performing below an acceptable standard and which lacks the consistency and toughness which is part of today's game, and which has left us with the financial constraints that have led to major conflicts between the board and the players.
"It is almost as though we are in a free fall," said the president who emphasised that our problems go beyond cricket, who identified the lack of money as one of the problem, and who was truthful and sensible enough to say that as far as the players are concerned, "the incremental step-by-step approach will, of course, continue to be necessary".
There were two things that I found interesting while reading Gordon's address, however. One was his philosophy on life; the other was one of the problems facing World Cup 2007.
"I speak to you today not as one who is attempting to wave a magic wand, but simply as one who shares your passion for the game. When that passion is combined with a lifetime of complications and business difficulties, it encourages a perspective that focuses on the possible rather than that which is not.
l.,"That is the road we must travel if our difficulties are to be overcome. Those problems must be turned into opportunities to effect required change and we must develop a positive attitude in addressing them rather than remain consumed by the negatives."
FEAR OF EXPLOITATION
Apart from the possibility that West Indies cricket may not make any money from it, one of the fears of the World Cup is that the event will be so exploited that it could damage the region as a tourist destination and, in saying that "significant challenges are ahead to maintain the tight timelines and to create the type of buy-in that will avoid exploitation", Gordon underlined that fear - and particularly as it relates to accommodation.
According to the president, although for some hotels it will be business as usual, as far as rates are concerned, one hotel group whose regular rate is US$180 per night has upped its rate to US$900 per night for the event, and if that is true, God help the World Cup and the West Indies.
According to the forecast, about 800,000 tickets will be sold for World Cup 2007, that would be 175,000 more than the amount sold for the last World Cup, and if that happens, the hotels, the service providers, would lick their fingers.
The problem, however, is that approximately two-thirds of those tickets will be reserved for visitors and no one likes to be exploited.
Exploitation, therefore, could seriously reduce the number of visitors, and if that happens, the West Indies dream of putting on the best World Cup ever would end in a nightmare.
