Dear Editor,
Thanks to the good sense of the majority of Jamaica's cricket clubs, who reversed the ridiculous decision to support Joel Garner for West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president, returning Dave Cameron, 8-4, for another term.
While Cameron was never the sharpest pencil in the box, Garner would have been an unmitigated disaster.
The main propaganda against Cameron, mounted by one or two prominent Caribbean politicians and media figures who should have known better, centred on the India tour fiasco. That this propaganda could gain such currency is a poor reflection on the thinking which obtains across the West Indies cricket community.
The actions (or inactions) of Cameron, West Indies Players' Association President Wavell Hinds, the WICB, and others contributed to the fiasco. But to draw some moral equivalency between those who contributed to the "crime" with those who actually committed the "crime" -- the reckless, greedy and irresponsible players -- is patently absurd and unfair.
In the long history of industrial relations, who ever heard of workers resolving a grouse with their union by bankrupting their employer? Good sense has prevailed.
One of the problems with West Indies cricket is backward thinking that isn't backward enough! It goes backwards only to the mid-1970s -- the Clive Lloyd era. Go back a little further and, hopefully, Cameron and Hinds, both members of Kensington Club, will examine history (1928-1951) and recognise that long before sponsorship, annual regional first-class cricket, access to English county, coaching, IPL, CPL, it was keen, highly competitive club cricket played across the region which produced the great players and allowed the region -- by 1951 -- to become the second most powerful team in the world.
We have lost that. No matter who is president or which governance structure is implemented, unless Cameron, Hinds and the regional boards revive club cricket there is no hope for change. You cannot build a house from the roof down.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
Congrats, Cameron and Jamaica
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Thanks to the good sense of the majority of Jamaica's cricket clubs, who reversed the ridiculous decision to support Joel Garner for West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president, returning Dave Cameron, 8-4, for another term.
While Cameron was never the sharpest pencil in the box, Garner would have been an unmitigated disaster.
The main propaganda against Cameron, mounted by one or two prominent Caribbean politicians and media figures who should have known better, centred on the India tour fiasco. That this propaganda could gain such currency is a poor reflection on the thinking which obtains across the West Indies cricket community.
The actions (or inactions) of Cameron, West Indies Players' Association President Wavell Hinds, the WICB, and others contributed to the fiasco. But to draw some moral equivalency between those who contributed to the "crime" with those who actually committed the "crime" -- the reckless, greedy and irresponsible players -- is patently absurd and unfair.
In the long history of industrial relations, who ever heard of workers resolving a grouse with their union by bankrupting their employer? Good sense has prevailed.
One of the problems with West Indies cricket is backward thinking that isn't backward enough! It goes backwards only to the mid-1970s -- the Clive Lloyd era. Go back a little further and, hopefully, Cameron and Hinds, both members of Kensington Club, will examine history (1928-1951) and recognise that long before sponsorship, annual regional first-class cricket, access to English county, coaching, IPL, CPL, it was keen, highly competitive club cricket played across the region which produced the great players and allowed the region -- by 1951 -- to become the second most powerful team in the world.
We have lost that. No matter who is president or which governance structure is implemented, unless Cameron, Hinds and the regional boards revive club cricket there is no hope for change. You cannot build a house from the roof down.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
Congrats, Cameron and Jamaica
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