Begging for a change
With elections looming, stakeholders want to see improved cricket landscape
Published:Sunday | April 21, 2024 | 12:10 AMOrane Buchanan - Staff Reporter
THE STATE of Jamaica’s cricket will take centre stage on Thursday, April 25 as 99 delegates will head to the polls to choose between incumbent president Wilford ‘Billy’ Heaven and Dr Donovan Bennett as the man to lead the Jamaica Cricket Association for another term.
Heaven has been the president for the last 10 years and was re-elected unopposed in the last two elections.
Mark Neita, former national cricketer and president of Melbourne Cricket Club, while speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, explained that cricket in Jamaica has declined to the point where the country has become the ‘laughing stock’ of regional cricket.
“I think the current administration, who has been in power for the last 10 years, has done a poor job with our cricket. It’s no secret that under this administration, our cricket has experienced a significant decline in almost every area of the game. We’re playing less cricket now than we’ve ever played before and on the regional level, we’ve been the laughing stock,” he suggested.
In the just-concluded West Indies Championship, Jamaica endured another torrid season as they lost five of their seven games. According to Neita, the majority of the blame does not lie with the players but rather the administration as the players struggled due to a lack of regular matches leading up to the tournament. He further stated that the playing of year-round cricket should be top of any cricket administration’s agenda.
“A change should definitely be coming as it’s long overdue. I don’t think it’s the players’ fault, the talent is there but without the proper structure I don’t see how they will succeed. I would say that is the primary thing that you should want to establish in playing more cricket but the problem we face is bigger than that as we don’t have sufficient coaches in the system,” he added.
Daren Powell, former Jamaica and West Indies fast bowler, was in agreement with Neita that the state of Jamaica’s cricket is in need of a major shakeup.
“When the COVID pandemic came it was used as an excuse for the state of the country’s cricket. That has gone and we’ve all seen what the cricket has come to and Jamaica’s team at the recent four-day competition hasn’t shown any improvement. Our Senior Cup competition is dead, we haven’t heard anything about Junior Cup and the state of Jamaica’s cricket is in a poor state at the moment,” said Powell.
Powell added that at this juncture, there were more questions than answers as proper cricketing competitions should be created in Jamaica to assist the players in moving from one level to the next.
“While we need the playing of more cricket, we also need proper growth programmes. We have cricket playing in parts of Jamaica but is it beneficial to the youngsters? How many players from the Social Development Commission competition have moved from that into the Jamaica set-up?” he questioned.