Tony Becca

AFTER ALL the plans and the expectations, the preparations and the action, Cricket World Cup 2007 is now down to its final match.

It's down to the lasttwo, and to the apparent surprise of many Caribbean fans, the West Indies are not among them.

After starting out in fine style with an emphatic victory over Pakistan, the West Indies, as expected, defeated Zimbabwe and Ireland to finish the first round with a perfect six points from their three matches.

It was, however, downhill from there on, as one after the other they not only lost to Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa, but were comprehensively beaten. In fact, they were so badly beaten that before they recovered to defeat Bangladesh last Thursday and to lose to England by the margin of only one wicket and one delivery, many wondered if they, the once mighty West Indies, were good enough to win a match.

The question is this: what happened to a team that so many, including board president Ken Gordon, team coordinator Clive Lloyd - or whatever he is called - and captain Brian Lara, said would have won the Cup?

Top batsmen

Apart from the fact that the team's top batsmen - Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan - fired only once each, and definitely not when it mattered. Apart from the fact that Marlon Samuels, but for his innings against Pakistan and one against England, and again when it hardly mattered, Dwayne Bravo and Devon Smith failed to perform, and apart from the fact that of the bowlers only Daren Powell performed in more than one match and was therefore the only one close to consistency, there have been other problems with the team and in the team - problems that have filled the airwaves and the columns of newspapers around the region and across the world.

After wearing blinkers for a long, long time, after turning a blind eye on them, the West Indies board should now focus and deal with the other problems as they look to the future.

And the board should do so if for no other reason than that those problems may well be the reason, or the reasons, why the batsmen, based on their general performance, were little or no better than thoseof Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Ireland.

Long-time problem

The problems have been around for a long time, they include the indiscipline of many of the players - the kind of indiscipline, for example, that sees them shying away from proper practice and proper training, and the kind of indiscipline that sees so many of them enjoying themselves when they should be playing club cricket.

Maybe it all comes down to the belief that they are better than they are, but whatever it is, it is not good for West Indies cricket and the future of West Indies cricket.

We can, for example, talk all we want to about the absence of an academy, but until the West Indies board takes back West Indies cricket from the players, until the players, who are highly paid, appreciate or are forced to appreciate that they are like any other employees and that they are expected to give value for money - things will remain the same.

The West Indies' poor performance in the World Cup is disappointing, but based on what has been happening for many years now, based on the general indiscipline of the players who have been selected and who continue to represent the West Indies, and based on the performance of the team, it is not, and cannot be, surprising.

It, however, can be a blessing. If Gordon and his board are really interested in West Indies cricket and the future of West Indies cricket they should start the weeding process now and, regardless of whose ego suffers, they should start at the top.

Brian Lara has gone, and while he will be missed as a batsman, he will not be missed as a captain. Not when it is remembered that he did not even play club cricket for a long, long time, that he seldom represented Trinidad and Tobago, that he did not even train as much as the other players, and that he and the majority of the players did not get along - that most of them did not like him.

Bennett King has also gone. As a coach, he also will not be missed, and hopefully, the board will not even listen to his advice about employing his assistant, much more accept it.

After saying that if he thought his resignation would help he would certainly resign, the word is out that president Gordon is also about to go, and for many reasons he also will not be missed.

The others

What is important, however, what is most important, is that there are others, on the field and off it, who, because of the absence of skill and the lack of performance, their indiscipline, their incompetence and their insularity, should go, and hopefully the board, the body that is elected to run West Indies cricket, will see to it that they do go.

The time has come to put West Indies cricket first - to look into the mirror, to really look at the players, to look at those in charge of the players, to differentiate between those with real talent and those who are pretenders, those with passion for the game and for West Indies cricket, and those who care little or none at all, to identify those with little or no discipline, and to clean house, from top to bottom, on and off the field.