HE WAS playing a somewhat different role from the one he has so often played from behind the microphone and keyboard. And to some degree, Tony Cozier, the Caribbean's leading cricket commentator, played a cautious innings before a polite audience when he delivered the feature address at the Queen's Park Cricket Club's awards function on Friday evening. However, on a night when the veteran scribe made a plea for the West Indies Cricket Board to ``bite the bullet'' and make decisive changes to the West Indian captaincy and the way the Board generally does business, he also went to bat for the regional media.
``Absolute disgrace,'' was the way the Barbadian journalist described the current situation regionally where ``you have to put up with reports from Caribbean News Agency or Reuters from people who have no interest in West Indies cricket when we have capable journalists that can be sent.'' The statement was followed by one of the night's most genuine and generous rounds of applause.
That shot on the current state of press reporting, however, was one of the most forthright that Cozier fired during his address on what he termed ``the deep and deepening crisis'' in West Indies cricket. Cozier told the audience the cricketing countries of Asia and South Africa got total exposure to the world game via television and noted that Caribbean youngsters, in contrast, saw only the West Indies play. ``We've seen monster truck pulling, we've seen X-Games, we've seen Z-Games but we have not seen on our national television in an area where cricket remains the national game, any cricket whatsoever. It must affect our youngsters.''
More applause.
The response would have been a pleasant sound to the ears of a man whose writings have not always been popular with the locals. In preceding the evening's other guest speaker FIFA vice-president Jack Warner at the podium, Cozier had declared that ``I came here with more than a little trepidation.'' And when it came to the current issues surrounding the West Indies team and its board, he mixed caution with aggression.
When a team with players of proven talent and ability produces the results the current squad has been producing, Cozier concluded, ``something certainly is wrong.''
``There are reasons,'' he said. ``We had two great fast bowlers in Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose. But Walsh is 35 and Ambrose is 34. And the sell-by dates for even the greatest of fast bowlers are certainly before that.''
There would have been no argument at all with that statement from those in the room. Likewise, when Cozier noted that Franklyn Rose and Mervyn Dillon were ``sitting down watching from the comfort of the dressing room while their aging colleagues toil away ineffectively in the field.'' The cheering in the sprawling room was enthusiastic. But there was silence when the Barbadian critic touched on the issue of the vice-captaincy.
``Selectors, experienced Test players, cricketers of knowledge,'' he noted, ``nominated an individual. And the Board, comprising a businessman, a racing pools operator, a bank manager, a school teacher and other sundry individuals who have never graced the Test cricket field, turn their recommendation down without a single explanation to the public.''
And in making reference to the Trinidad Board's claim of a plot against Brian Lara, he said, ``collective responsibility seems to have been thrown out the window.''
It was no surprise then to hear him, amid loud chuckles, rename the WICB. ``The West Indies Cricket Board of Crisis, Conflict, Controversy and Confusion.''
Cozier was beginning to tackle the subject of Lara now. And before the long, he was encouraging the WICB to ``bite the bullet'' and weed out both the ``backsliders'' in the team and those past their best.
``We have back-to-back series against the two strongest, the most competitive, the fittest, the best prepared teams in the world coming up in less than a year,'' he began.
``We have to start rebuilding with the series against England. We have to bite the bullet and say au revoir, thank you very much to the great years of service from the older members of the side and bring in some newer players.
I also feel that we also need, in that, a change of leadership.''
Enthusiastic cheering followed that ``stroke''.
And then quiet for this:
``We all know the reasons why Brian Lara has not been given the captaincy yet even though the Board will not tell us,'' he said, leaving many obviously surprised.
``But we now have to say, Brian Lara, this is your time, you come forward and lead the West Indies team.'' Four runs!.
``When he does so, he will be under more of a microscope than he has been throughout the recent past when he has been so carefully monitored. ``He will know that himself. But he has a huge job ahead of him when he does become captain to try and revive flagging West Indian fortunes. Let us hope that he's up to it.....''
FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, sitting at the head table agreed fully with the need for Caribbean cricket to retool itself.
Batting first, he also feigned apprehension about the reception he would receive given his much publicised grave pronouncements about the state of the game.
But Warner, an honorary Queen's Park member, began by boasting of the growth of world and local football (gate receipts at semi-pro matches this season he said reached $163,000) and then declared that ``cricket does not have to die for football to succeed.''
And he suggested that the game's administrators look at improving marketing strategies by merchandising cricket clothing, reducing the length of Test matches and improving the pay packets of umpires. The Caribbean's football boss was firm in his belief that the game was headed for trouble if there was no change.
``It is no use,'' he said, ``having $1.7 million in the bank and no cricketers.'' That was a play even Cozier would have been hard-pressed to call.