NDP VIEW – Invest In Our   Local Cricket

(Excerpts of the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Dr Godwin Friday’s Presentation on the Bill to provide for the conferral of citizenship on the surviving members of the 1975 Men’s West Indies World Cup Cricket Team)
The greatest contribution that we can make to that legacy of champions is for us to give the confidence to those legends that we will put in place that which is required for us to build champions again so that we can continue that legacy that they have left us.
That to be a member of the West Indies team, to be a supporter of the West Indies team doesn’t mean that you have to take a back seat to anyone. That you can hold your head high and say we were champions then, we are champions now, and we will always be champions. Not only because we win because being champions is also in how you play. That you are capable on any day of beating any team. I would like to see that we honour the legends in that way. By investing in our local cricket to ensure that it is again widely played.
Some years ago, I was involved with starting a T20 league in Bequia. I wanted to play cricket still and I got involved in organizing it. And we went on for a number years, about 10 years. Part of what we did, we introduced a rule, and my insistence that you had at least a place for two junior players on each team, and they must play in every game; as a way of encouraging the younger players to get experience. I thought there would be pushback from the teams and senior players that want to get on the field and they want to be as competitive as possible.
But the problem came that when you wanted to find the two junior players for the teams. You couldn’t find enough players to fill the two spots on each team. We had six teams. You ask the youngsters to come and play, they asked, Friday what kind of cricket are you talking about? Hardball? I said, yes. And that was it. Most of them didn’t want anything to do with that. They wanted to play basketball or football. That is where the problem lies. If we don’t have our best athletes playing the game, then we will lose out to other sports and cricket will continue to struggle.
But we are talking about legacy. That’s what this whole debate is about, the legends. It’s about the legacy of West Indies cricket. And I am happy to see that Cricket West Indies recognized this and honoured them with a spectacular ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the West Indies team winning the World Cup. That was appropriate and it had the support and involvement of the whole establishment of cricket. And, I dare say, the national governments. That is how it should be, because these players, these legends, they transcend national boundaries. So conferring citizenship on one of them here or all of them here or in some other country, all of that is small reward for what they have given to us as a region. We don’t question that.
However, is the manner in which these things are done, they have to be inclusive. And they have to be done in a way that elevates the cricket and the stature of those persons who we’re seeking to honour. When the Prime Minister asked, why now? I asked myself the same question, why now and how should we do it?
So, I ask in this opportunity for us here to be inclusive and to be together and say that we are honouring these legends, who do we include to be a part of that process? Was Cricket West Indies informed, invited, or in any way a part of this process of honouring the legends who are a part of that institution, built that institution, and were built by that institution? From my understanding, they were not! How can it be that we would honour what is regarded as the pinnacle or the beginning of that pinnacle, the dominance of West Indies cricket, without involving the institution itself that gave rise to the teams and which sustain them and honour them over the years and more recently at the 50th anniversary. How can they not be a part of this? And why are they not a part of it? That is a question that needs to be answered. And if you’re thinking about what is driving this initiative here today, we have to ask ourself that question. Why in alternative to Cricket West Indies rather than together with Cricket West Indies management? That is strange, to say the least.
I would like to think that the legends who are mentioned here would not wish to in any way to be involved in the local politics of any particular country in the region. So, we must be very careful to keep them out of it and not to have any kind of appearance that somehow, they are being embroiled or brought into our local disputes. To me that diminishes them and diminishes the stature of the legend that they are, across the region. And it pains me in my heart. I cannot bring myself to say anything that is against or critical of any those members of the team. I just cannot do it.
They are too much a part of my sense of who I am as a Caribbean person and of my love of the game of cricket. Anything that causes me to doubt that and to feel somehow ambivalent about something that I’ve always had a very clear vision and view of, worries me and troubles me and makes me feel that it ought not to happen. This exercise here causes those concerns to well up within me and it makes me not just sad.