ISSUES INVOLVING the behaviour of West Indies players, the sudden resignation of captain Brian Lara, coach Bennett King and the intent of its board president, Ken Gordon, to do likewise, have shone more light on some of the problems that have plagued West Indies cricket for years now and more reasons for the regional team's continued decline.

These actions have been triggered by what is largely viewed as a poor performance by the West Indies in its own World Cup, where it finished sixth of the 16 competitors.

But careful examination of results against the five countries that placed higher will reveal otherwise.

The top four, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, have dominated the West Indies in both one-day and Tests, in all recent series dating back to and beyond 2004. In the March-May ODI series in New Zealand last year, the Kiwis won 5-0; a year earlier - right here in the West Indies, the Proteas also flogged WI 5-0 in the ODI series; and in Test-only series against Australia and Sri Lanka, the regional team was flogged 3-0 and 2-0 respectively.

One-dayers between the Windies and England in that period have been as marginal as England's one-wicket Super Eights' victory with a ball to spare and the West Indies' miraculous one-wicket triumph in the Champions Trophy final in December 2004.

So nothing extraordinary happened there.

Disunity within the camp

What might have angered many West Indians was the manner in which their team lost those matches, appearing not to give maximum effort on occasions.

That was not the case for matches only, but in training also and it was reported that players were not preparing as they should prior to and during the tournament.

It was also reported that there was disunity within the camp and later, after the team's elimination, it became clear that there were differences between even the skipper, Lara, players and selectors whose initial request for Ramnaresh Sarwan to lead the team was overturned by the board president, Gordon.

In three stints as captain, Lara was unsuccessful. He had clearly lost influence among the team and the World Cup exit was a good time to replace him.

Need for fresh start

Gordon also tendered a letter stating his intent to resign but was asked to reconsider.

In his letter dated April 17, pointing to the board's failures Gordon said "... the situation which now exists might have been avoided if WICB had been more aggressive in addressing these problems over the years. This includes our current administration for our choices have not delivered. We should be seen to be taking responsibility from the top if this is to be the culture of the future. I, therefore, propose to tender my resignation as president to send an indisputable signal of how the board will in future address the issue of accountability."

I respect that. He should go, and the other members of the board too.

They have failed to administer and therein lies the basis of the West Indies' problem: from top to bottom there is no system of accountability.

There needs to be a fresh start. The coach, King, has resigned, more due to problems he could not control. But during his tenure, when he got unprecedented support, the team continued to fail. So, he was part of the losing unit and though for frustration more than anything else, is rightfully on his way out.

Right now, the team is due to begin an English tour soon and its players' association is involved in another dispute over pay with the board.

I believe in rewarding people properly for their efforts but when a team performs consistently poor as the West Indies and consistently gets embroiled with its administration over pay then one has to question its motives.

The team is not performing and people have grown tired of its failures and this ongoing trend ahead of every tour/tournament.

The board has inserted King's deputy, fellow Australian David Moore, to coach the team on the England tour.

They should have just cleaned house and gone for a West Indies coach now and given him the kind of support and tools that were afforded King and company.

Sarwan is a good choice as skipper. He has been the vice-captain for years and has shown whenever he leads the team that he has good leadership skills.

There was support for outstanding first-class captain Daren Ganga but he is not a senior Test cricketer and would certainly have trouble dealing with the many players who have played longer at this level.

Making hard decisions

West Indies cricket has really bottomed out and needs to rise as a major force in Tests, which would intrinsically lead to all-round growth.

To enhance that development, a new approach must be taken now with new people who are committed to making hard decisions to ensure that performance standards are realised and maintained.

Either that or else the same issues that now plague the team will keep rotting out poor performances from a big cricketing nation whose floundering play will do nothing but ensure its continued decline.