When he chaired the West Indies selection panel a dozen or so years ago, Wes Hall spoke of the “mental discomfiture” that comes with the post.
He referred to the “uninformed and bitter criticism from those who should know better” and the politics that was tearing West Indies cricket apart.
Hall was to once more experience the “discomfiture” a few years later in his brief period as president of the board before ill health, doubtless advanced by the pressures of the situation, forced his resignation.
There has been undeniable evidence over the last three months that, if anything has changed, it has been for the worse.
It is clear that West Indies cricket continues to be overrun by those in high places who should know better but either don’t or don’t care. They unashamedly pursue agendas with an obvious insular bias and little regard for their sense of responsibility.
Deryck Murray, the wicket-keeper when Hall was demolishing opposition batting with his ‘pace like fire’, followed the great fast bowler into administration as president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) and, as such, a director of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
There he identified at first hand the main reason for the disheartening decline of West Indies cricket.
“It has nothing to do with talent on the field but simply with who wants to control what, who wants to have what position and how can I get in the limelight,” he said a year ago.
His assertion is repeatedly substantiated by all the evidence.
There has been a protracted, increasingly intense and bitter battle for control between the WICB and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) that continues to be publicly recorded on an almost daily basis in the pages of our newspapers, over the airwaves and through cyberspace.
Even more alarmingly, officials of territorial boards that are constituent members of the WICB have openly criticized the decisions of selectors who they, or their representatives, agreed to put their in the first place. The principle of collective responsibility does not come into consideration.
