Cricket West Indies (CWI) chief executive officer Chris Dehring has acknowledged the growing challenge posed by global T20 franchise leagues but insists that a balance must be struck to safeguard the future of West Indies cricket.
While not condemning the rise of private investment in the game, Dehring pointed out that the increasing number of leagues has created difficulties for the regional team, particularly with players prioritizing lucrative contracts over international duty.
On that note, he argued that the franchise leagues have significantly altered the cricketing landscape.
“I don’t condemn all this private investment and all these leagues popping up around the world, because it kind of solves one of the challenges. It creates other challenges… for the West Indies team and future West Indies teams, but it’s not something that I look down on or am afraid of,” Dehring said on the Mason and Guest cricket radio show.
“We just have to find the right way to ride those waves—to get more infrastructure, to get more national resources going into the sport at the territorial board level; to get more and more exposed people working in cricket at the different levels. You have to create a pipeline,” he added.
Dehring pointed out that a scenario in which players no longer needed Cricket West Indies to earn a living was serious, but in the same breath, added that West Indies cricket could learn from the international club football model.
“Where you have private investment coming into the sport, doing all that development work, and basically, the English FA basically has to pick the players off at the end,” he opined.
Dehring believes that the issue extends beyond CWI and requires intervention from the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“It is seriously under discussion whether the ICC should try and own the international calendar, create windows in which only international cricket can be played, etc.”
“It’s an evolving process. We have to be part of that discussion knowing our particular vulnerability, because we don’t simply have the commercial resources to retain players and pay players the way India or an England might be able to. But… even England, with their resources, are coming under pressure… Collectively, cricket has to solve this problem,” Dehring stated.
On the financial front, Dehring explained that CWI is positioning itself as a commercially attractive entity.
“We have a commercial area that we are going to utilise to continue to push West Indies cricket as a platform for commercial activity,” Dehring shared.
“We’re not asking for corporate support; we have to put together the kind of sponsorship packages… that will allow companies or encourage companies across the Caribbean and internationally to use West Indies cricket as a platform,” he noted.
According to Dehring, while CWI is paying its bills, he believes it should be more sizeable.
“We’re paying our bills, but our bills should be much bigger. We should have much more developmental expenditure,” he declared.
Finally, Dehring, though admitting that CWI cannot compete financially with powerhouse cricketing nations like India, pointed to the importance of maximising the Caribbean’s natural sporting talent.
“What they (India) don’t have is our high athletic quotient… What we need to do is maximise it, making sure we get the best of the athletes that are coming into the system,” he ended. (Sportsmax)
