Chesterfield Files By Trevor Chesterfield
New Delhi

In this part of the world nothing is quite what it seems.
And really, Yahaluweni, you shouldn’t need to be clairvoyant for this footloose Kiwi to explain that emblematic line to you.

Take the coaching scenario on the subcontinent. Two former Sri Lanka coaches, John Dyson and Dav Whatmore have hit the headlines for differing reasons. It explains just how unconventional even the BCCI run their affairs.

Dyson grew tired of the dithering in the Mumbai-run offices of the board and accepted the more prickly and far less hedonistic post offered by the West Indies, that conflict-ridden collection of islands and countries where its amalgam of identities is becoming a serious issue. There are many who suggest he is dancing with a cobra and there can be only one winner.

West Indies are even worse positioned in the International Cricket Council rankings than Sri Lanka when he took over the island with its often fractious support base and worked a minor miracle. Why even in the slogs Sri Lanka briefly achieved second place when Dyson was in charge. Climbing four places in the limited-overs ladder was a mighty effort back then with the dual captaincy system always a contentious issue.

There are those of us who felt that adopting the two captains approach didn’t work well. It was argued too how Sri Lanka lost the Test series to Australia because of the conservative gameplan in 2003/04 tour of the island.

The implications and reasons for Dyson to turn his back on India also lifts the facade of those candidates, local and foreign, now harbouring similar doubt of the board’s integrity. This is because the missing pieces in this puzzle now suggest that Whatmore will, temporarily at least, be eased into the role from the academy post he now holds.

Already the word is that Whatmore is to be in charge of coaching detail for next series, against Pakistan with five ODIs and three Tests and likely handle the team in Australia.

Dyson admitted that his decision to turn his back on what he saw as a plumb job and accept the tricky Caribbean position was a simple matter of taking up an offer that was available.

When almost two months ago a list of candidates was released of those who applied, it gave the impression how the board was playing a ‘waiting game’ as not all names on the list were genuine. In Dyson’s case, he couldn’t sit around and twiddle his thumbs.

In answer to a question about the Indian post, the former Australian opener’s answer was clear enough; and here there is a lesson for the tortoises in charge of the game on the subcontinent. They are so quick to answer charges when confronted with unsavoury crowd behaviour. When it comes to simple housekeeping, however, they are totally lost in making up their minds.

There is also this impression how the bruised ego of the Graham Ford farce has left them with a credibility problem because of certain perfidy attached to how that announcement was handled.

‘While I didn’t lose interest they (India) didn’t show any interest in me,’ Dyson said when asked why he pulled the plug on India and decided on the far tougher West Indies role. ‘As I do wish to continue coaching at this (international) level the opportunity to apply for the West Indies job was too good to ignore. The post was advertised on the ICC website and I decided to go for it.’

But with Whatmore now in the picture, the panjandrums in Mumbai felt his knowledge of Asian conditions made him a permanent alternative without the need to sign up anyone else.

When asked about the Bangladesh post, Dyson indicated there was some confusion over the initial list and criticised the Bangladesh approach.

‘At no time was I given an indication of what ranking I was on their new short list. It seems that it is okay for them to talk to many potential candidates but not right for me to do the same with potential employers,’ was Dyson’s pointed comment. Fair enough. He had his aims and needed clarity and not growing and irritating obfuscation.

But the Indian board are now seen to be like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming bus and unable to make up their mind about the team’s future while signing deals with billions of rupees. They do have a back up plan in giving Whatmore the role. It is also, in a sense a slap in the face of the jovial Australian.

Yet the top BCCI hierarchy went to Bangladesh back in July to sign Whatmore. After that came the ever-dangerous double dating game with approaches to Ford. Little wonder there is a growing questionmark over the board’s plans of not who is to be India’s next coach, but when they are going to appoint one.

Now it seems they have made up their mind and Whatmore, to all intense and purposes is going to be India’s new coach. But that doesn’t mean what you see and what you have is what you are going to get. There are a few issues still to be resolved.

As for Dyson, the West Indies poses another conundrum that needs sorting out. During a discussion with former Sri Lankan A Team coach Stan Nell, the thinking arose how, as an entity, the West Indies as a team is dead. Jeff Dujon highlighted this when he said that it didn’t matter who coached the West Indies, the talent was no longer there.

A former great player and a member of the squad when West Indies were a major player with unlimited talent, Dujon knows enough to highlight the grey areas of the game in the region. This posed the question when he was in Sri Lanka for the limited overs series against England and pondered the issues facing the game in the Caribbean.

When a nation such as Uganda, where players have to go begging for outside aid to get in equipment, and beat a team such as Bermuda, with its Alan Sanford supported millions and infrastructure that even Zimbabwe look at with envious eyes, it makes you think. Sure, Bermuda is a separate identity. But it makes the point of regional diversity as opposed to a stagnant board where even a board chairman was confused about a Test umpire being one of his own.

As was pointed out some weeks ago, Sanford saw the commercial value of the Twenty/20 game in terms of TV. But as for the rest, the West Indies are dead as a cricket entity and this needs some serious restructuring done.

The West Indies need to seriously look at the pros and cons of regionalism as a way to regenerate the game and attract the better talent in England that Dujon has been talking about. Of how Guyana, Barbados (and surrounding islands), Antigua (and surrounding islands), and Jamaica should have Test and limited overs status, thus giving the ICC enough teams to form a two tier international competition, with promotion and relegation.

This would cure the complacency and apathy that exist in some countries about their development and performance. It would mean stronger growth and it won’t be such a wrench. It’s not identity that is the problem; it is the old, to pinch a word, antinomian conundrum. The West Indian federal concept is no longer applicable in this century. The system is archaic and developed on moral laws that are seen to apply to all and ignore the regional autonomy.

Dyson says he is aware of the political diversities involved as well as their divisiveness and the entrechat manoeuvres needed to overcome this identity issue. The West Indies today is no longer that of the image so lovingly written about almost fifty years ago by the ex-Trot C L R James, the great Caribbean writer, in Beyond a Boundary.

All this may seem not so important to those of you looking forward to the two Tests in Australia. More on that next week as the series looms.

Ricky Ponting, however, for all those of you out there who point a finger at him, discovered even in post apartheid South Africa how harsh racism exists. He was a teenager on his first tour when it confronted him at a stadium outside Johannesburg during a practice session. He didn’t like what he saw, kicked up a fuss, gave his forthright views and let the United Cricket Board know it as well.

This brings me to the point of how it needed a major volte-face by the arrogant South African rugby hierarchy to extricate themselves from a major pile of excrement so typical of their own making. In their eager haste to show off the spoils of World Cup success they initially removed Soweto, the apartheid ghetto, from the areas they planned to visit. Rugby, even in post-apartheid South Africa, is not shy of showing its racist colours.

Citing ‘time constraints and logistics’ as the reasons it was a major public relations disaster and the public and even traditional establishment media angrily reacted. As it turned out, they may have met Nelson Mandela at his Soweto home, but less than five thousand turned out in an area of three million that still heavily carries the scars of the demeaning apartheid years.

More than 100 000, however, turned out to the memorial service of international reggae icon Lucky Dube, murdered by urban terrorists in a botched hijacking effort. No one from rugby paid a tribute to a man revered by millions who wrote words of peace, harmony and unity. But in far off Lahore, the South African cricket team sent their condolences.