Former West Indies captain and current mentor of the national team, Brian Lara said tha the Windies players cannot be blamed for preferring lucrative T20 franchise leagues around the world, like IPL, over international cricket.
One of the reasons for West Indies’ decline, especially in Test cricket has been its players flocking to T20 leagues all over the world and overlooking international cricket. Lara said that playing the game these days is also about “making a living”.
“For an 18-or-19-year-old to say, ‘I’m heading to the IPL’, or, ‘I don’t care about West Indies cricket’... It’s not just his fault. (About) 40 or 50 years ago, you may have been driven or motivated by playing for your country. But the sport today is about playing and making a living, so we have to make sure that that is part of the whole deal that we are selling,” Lara told ‘Sen Sportsday’.
Lara is in Australia with the West Indies team as a mentor for their two-Test series. Lara admitted the difficulty on the part of the West Indies Cricket Board (CWI) to compete with lucrative franchise leagues around the world.
He added that the West Indies Cricket Board must try to instill in the next generation the importance of representing their part of the world in international cricket.
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“We’ve got to face the facts. With the franchise cricket that is being played around the world, it is very difficult for the West Cricket Board to compete with such lucrative opportunities that our cricketers have. It’s impossible to do it with a present crop. I think we’ve got to go and get that into the schools and the age group cricket before we bring them out on the international stage,” he said.
“I think we’ve got to, first of all, try to hold on to the young ones, the teenagers. We need to get them to understand what West Indies cricket means and how we can protect it,” he added.
Furthermore, the owner of the record for highest individual score in Tests (400*) and FC cricket (501*), stated that it was crucial for West Indies cricketers to develop a sense of loyalty to the Caribbean team.
“I just think that we have not sold what West Indies cricket means to us as Caribbean people and why you should be playing for the West Indies - that’s the first thing we need to do. That’s what Australia has done. Australia don’t just pay their cricketers more or England pays their cricketers more … they develop that sort of loyalty to the sport in their country and that’s what we have not done,” he said.
The first Test between Australia and West Indies begins in Adelaide on Wednesday.
(PTI inputs)
