Part 2 of my cricket neighbor relationships series- enjoy!
Cricket neighbor
relationships-part 2
Eitan Shai
For
all those who haven't read part 1, In this series I am discussing about what
the Full Members are doing to help the Associates, and, if possible, to suggest
ways to improve and upgrade that help. In part 1 I elaborated on the countries
who have contributed to their neighbor's cricket growth, and who actively help
them develop their cricket structure. However, not all the Full Members are
like that, and some have totally abandoned the good of the game in favor of
personal short-term gains. In this article, I will discuss the worst offenders,
and try see if anything can be done.
West Indies:
Who
would have believed that West Indies, the nation who were severely
discriminated by the cricket world until the 70's, do the same thing to their
neighbors? West Indies have shut out Canada and USA from their domestic programs,
don't help them with anything, and only twice played in USA, and even then they
didn't play against the USA team, but against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The lack
of support from West Indies is so deep, USA cricket have had to receive help
from New Zealand, on the other side of the globe, instead of getting it from
nearby! As appalling as the situation is, Bermuda are even worse off. Bermuda
are a tiny country, so they are not able to produce a self-sustainable domestic
competition, and the current one they have produces very low-level cricket,
which means that if a young talent emerges, he has to play elsewhere to
improve. The logical solution to that situation would be if Bermuda would send
a team to the West Indies domestic competitions, where young Bermudians would
be exposed to a good level of competition and could improve there.
Unfortunately, not only don't West Indies allow that to happen, they don't even
allow single players to join teams there! As a result, if a Bermudian player
wants to improve, he has to travel as far as England, which is a very expensive
thing to do, and just not possible most of the time for a 17/18 year old
player, which caused Bermuda to loose talents like Joshua Gilbert and OJ Pitchers.
Cricket in the Americas is declining, and West Indies are not doing anything
about it.
Rating:
3/10.
They gain a point because of their once-in-a-blue-moon u19 tournaments, which
they invite their neighbors to.
Ways to improve:
Unlike
the other countries, for West Indies I will go into detail here.
The
first, and most crucial, step here must be to include players like Steven Taylor
(USA) and Kamau Leverock (Bermuda) in the West Indies domestic set-ups, and
ensure they get top coaching while they are there. The next step must be
instead of stripping tours by countries like Pakistan, and making them shorter,
they should send those touring teams to Bermuda/USA/Canada to play matches
there versus the local sides. If possible, they should also play themselves
against these countries, and send West Indies A to play there often. Thirdly,
they must bring back Canada into their domestic systems, as that has been
proven to be a great developing ground for Canada, and a lot of Canada's current
team will extremely benefit from that. Finally, West Indies must try provide
monetary help and incentives for Canada and USA to develop their grassroots and
actually spread cricket among the locals, instead of just relying on players
from subcontinential origins. If they do that, countries from the Americas can
be powerhouses in cricket, which will also benefit West Indies.
Bangladesh:
Bangladesh
are a country that keeps a very low profile. In their policies they always try
to be a shadow of India. Although they have a cricket-crazy population which
nets them a lot of money, they don't use that to help Associates at all.
Bangladesh have not given Malaysia or Bhutan a thing for a long time, which
will hurt their development badly. In addition, when there are votes in the ICC
about including Associates, Bangladesh always go along with India, and vote
against including them. Admittedly, the Bangladesh Premier League is the only
T20 competition to include Associates, however, that only happened because
Pakistan pulled out of the competition and they needed replacements. Overall, a
big disappointment from a country that recently was an Associate also, and
because of that should be giving back more.
Rating:
2/10
Ways to improve:
Remember
where they came from. Start with sending coaches to Bhutan and China, and
inviting them to play in Bangladesh.
India:
India
are easily the worst of all[sz1]
countries in providing help and supporting their neighbors. Although their
cricket board is the richest by a very long margin, they are greedy and keep
all that money for themselves, and although countries like Nepal are begging
for help, India don't give anything. India don't allow Nepali players to play
in their domestic competitions, forcing the Nepali team to practice against
club and school teams, which are so much behind Nepal that they don't have much
of a challenge, which leads to poor performance in tournaments like the
recently concluded WCL division 3. India also refuse to allow Nepal and
Afghanistan to send their players to places like the MRF pace foundation in
Chennai, which could have seriously helped their players develop, and iron out
their technical faults. Furthermore, in virtually every ICC vote they always
try make it harder for the Associates, by voting against them and leading the
whole Asian block to support that vote. A good example of this behavior is
India's continued obstruction of Ireland's Full Member ambitions, even though
they deserve it according to unanimous opinion.
Rating:
1/10.
If I could give them a 0, or even negative numbers, I would do it.
Ways to improve:
Change
everything. Stop being so greedy and pigheaded. Accept the fact that you have a
big responsibility, and act accordingly.
The
big question is- why? Why do these boards sacrifice the good of the game for
their personal short-term gains? They have got a golden chance to spread the
game, why are they misusing it? These questions, among others, I don't really
have answers for. If you can provide answers in the comments, it would be a big
help.
After
the optimistic part 1, and this depressing part 2, there are still 3 more Full
Members to cover- South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. These I will discuss
in part 3, next time. Until then, goodbye and have a very nice day.
Eitan Shai
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