CWI President Kishore Shallow was inaccurate when he said Caricom does not invest in Cricket, we spoke with Dr Rowley at a briefing at his home today where he shared his fear after the West Indies record breaking loss to Australia last week.
00:00Dr. Keith Rowley, former Prime Minister, calls the comment made by CWI President Kishore Shallow that CARICOM does not invest in cricket, unfortunate.
00:11I think that was an unfortunate comment because anybody who knows anything about West Indies cricket will know that the nursery of cricket in the primary school, preparation of grounds, coaches for juniors, male and female, a lot of the international standard facilities like stadia, largely government public sector expenditure, government funds, you know,
00:41all there's an allocation for cricket in virtually all the islands, especially from there in Tobago, and therefore to say that government does nothing for cricket is an unfortunately inaccurate statement.
00:53The recent cricket symposia held across CARICOM, our testament, he says, to the efforts of government. To the average West Indian, cricket is not just a game. And the West Indies being bowled out for 27 against Australia was a step to the heart.
01:11Because my fear, when we make scores like we made there the other day, we label ourselves as not fit for purpose in the upper realms of test cricket. And we need to get out of that situation very quickly and stand on a game that is more than just a game to us and goes beyond the boundary.
01:32But this avid cricket fan says we are going wrong in very many directions of cricket, from the appreciation, enjoyment, the competition.
01:42There's a new game of cricket that is fast food and carries huge amounts of money, both in terms of payment to players and the actual running of a tournament. All of these things were not there 30 years ago, 25 years ago. And we have for the last 25 years been treading water. And it's only getting deeper and the current's getting swifter.
02:08Dr. Dr. Rawley says we need to confront the main issue.
02:13Dr. Rawley says we need to confront the main issue. And I think the issue remains who owns West Indies cricket and what is the ownership, what is the shareholder, which is the West Indian people, going to have to do about it.
02:29And more effort, he says, ought to be channeled to the test version of the sport.
02:34I think test cricket is the premier aspect of the game. And bad result or not, we should not contemplate giving up test cricket. To do so, we'll be giving up our legacy. And that is not what I would recommend.
02:51I think if anything, I think if anything, we should focus more on test cricket and give less of our resources to the other aspects of the game.
03:03While he says we may lose highly talented players who choose to go after money, the region will encourage, foster and nature others who may not even under the current context get a look.
03:16Test cricket is the role choice of the game. And West Indies was at the pinnacle of that. Even if we don't get back to the pinnacle in the near term or the medium term, even the long term, we should preserve our position in playing this game at test level.
Be the first to comment