Tony Becca

Julian Hunte, the new president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), has a tough job on his hands.

Although it will take more than luck to be successful, to turn things around, on and off the field, every West Indian who truly loves cricket and who loves to see the West Indies win matches and series, not occasionally but consistently, every West Indian who enjoys West Indies cricket at its best should be and must be wishing him all the luck.

Such is the state of West Indies cricket that for Hunte it will be like starting from scratch. Not only will he have to build a team that is strong enough to win, but he also has to spread the gospel of the game.

Hunte will have make an effort to win back those friends of the game who, because of the infighting in the game, walked away from it and have stayed away from it. Hunte will have to bring back the love for the game which once made it, for a long, long time, so popular in the region that it was number one in every territory.

Hunte will have to rekindle the passion for the game which made people, players and spectators play it and watch it almost every day.

Hunte will have to win back the support of the media and apart from also making peace with the players and with the players association, Hunte, most importantly, will have to find some money to put onto the game.

Although it was said by Samuel Butler way back in the 19th century that money is the root of all evil, and even though there is a 17th proverb which says that the abundance of money ruins youth, money is very important to the future of West Indies cricket - to taking West Indies cricket back to the top, to its former glory.

Because of the different times, money was probably not important in developing talent in the days of champions like Learie Constantine, George Headley, Manny Martindale and Herman Griffith, Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, Sonny Ramadhin and Alfred Valentine, Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith and Lance Gibbs.

It probably was not even important in the days of Clive Lloyd, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose.

Times have changed, however, and with money, with making money the order of things these days, with employers hardly affording sports-men and sportswomen time to play, with cost of living gone through the roof, with everybody charging an arm and a leg to do the simplest of things, everyone wants something for anything with some even wanting a fortune for doing nothing.

Better cricketers

Why does West Indies cricket needs money?

If West Indies cricket is thinking of even competing with the rest of the world - with Australia, South Africa, India and England, it has to produce better cricketers than they are now producing, and the only way to do that is to encourage more participation, to provide a better environment during the development stages, to have better coaching, or rather some coaching, during the development stages.

It will have to have a longer and better first-class tournament and it will have to pay at least its first-class cricketers.

West Indies cricket, therefore, needs money to train and to develop its talented young players. It needs money to assist the schools and the clubs to provide the right atmosphere and the coaches during those development stages.

It needs money to organise a better first-class tournament and it needs money to pay the players so that even those outside of the West Indies team, those representing Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands, those playing first-class cricket, can eat and drink and sleep comfortably while training, practicing and playing in an effort to develop their skills in their bid to represent the West Indies.

West Indies cricket needs money also for something else.

Right around the world, the Test-playing countries have players on central contracts, including the West Indies.

The difference, however, is that while they have 20 and sometimes 24 players on contract and are paying them good money so that they are comfortable when not actively involved in a Test series or a one-day series, so that they have time to train and to practise when the team is not active, the West Indies have nine and that is strange.

It is strange for a few simple reasons. It is strange because a cricket team is made up of 11 players and not nine and it is strange because a team is a team and while all the players are equal and do not deserve the same fee, everyone of the players who are all expected to train and to practice deserve the same treatment so that they too can train and practice regularly.

Best bowlers

Left: Jerome Taylor ... no contract, Right: Powell .. no contract - file

With only nine players on contract, that means that at best two in the team are not on contract and with all the best intentions in the world, that means that there are two West Indies teams on the field - one set of professionals and one set of amateurs as determined, not by the English Counties or the Australian States, but by the West Indies Cricket Board.

In the recent tour of England, for example, there were eight members of the team without a contract, on a few occasions, as many as five were in the team at the same time and they included two of the best bowlers in the team - pacers Daren Powell and Jerome Taylor.

That cannot be right. Barring one or two who might crash the party because of outstanding performances, the West Indies team should be selected from those on contract and that means there should be enough of them.

That is one of the things president Hunte has to look into, and that is one reason why he needs money - and plenty of it at that.