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As the West Indies cricketers returned home last week from their horrid tour of Australia, they could hardly have expected a red carpet reception.

After all, their record in Australia is far from spectacular, having not won a single game against the host country, whose record-breaking 15 consecutive Test victories was well deserved.

An assessment of the tour, along with the statistics, performance appraisals and recommendations, which ought to guide the selectors and administrators in formulating future policy objectives, must be the No.1 priority. However, the question is: Will there be any time to properly examined these matters with the Busta Cup in progress and the South African right at our door step?

Unfortunately, that's the manner in which the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has arranged its itinerary for the amateur cricketers of the Caribbean.

Substitutes

Even so, the sequestration of the touring party, along with a small group of likely substitutes, maybe considered onerous and unreasonable since most of the players, while enduring massive psychological pain from Down Under, would have been away from their families for several months.

This dilemma leads to only one thing, business as usual: forced participation in the Busta Cup for the returning players; a very short and inadequate training camp; an atmosphere of self-denial and non- disclosure of pertinent facts about the tour; retention and recycling of mediocrity; and another failure-bound mission against South Africa.

During the last decade, all the mission critical systems of West Indies cricket have been perniciously ignored. The key ingredient to success is sagacious preparation - mental, physical and technical. Yet we continue to treat this aspect of the sport with contempt, to the extent where the WICB's schedules are constructed without providing sufficient time for reflection and consolidation in a cricketing sense.

Revenues from overseas tours are crucial to the WICB, yet we cannot be obsessed with making tours only for the sake of making money, for the players well-being must also be a major concern to the board.

Complaints

Complaints from players about too much cricket is nothing new; but when the team is performing badly, then it becomes a serious problem which must be solved in order to protect the international reputation of the West Indian cricketing empire.

The Best Of Strokes believes that before we can solve the many problems which we have out in the middle, the WICB has got to face the challenges of transition - from amateurism to professionalism at the level of organisational structure, operations and performance.

The new CEO of the WICB, Gregory Shillingford, seems competent and capable of creating that kind of environment in which fundamental changes can be undertaken to facilitate that transition. However, accurate, timely and frequent communication with all the stakeholders in West Indies cricket are vital to the success of the WICB in the 21st century.

While the region debates the retention of Jimmy Adams, the recall of Carl Hooper or the inclusion of new young faces in the team to play against Australia, the real challenge for all of us is finding the right talents in all aspects of the sport, which will function harmoniously during this crucial reconstruction phase of our cricketing institution.

© The Barbados Nation