(SPORTSMAX) Businessman Chris Dehring believes the lack of professionalism among West Indies cricketers is hurting the region’s chances of becoming a force in world cricket once more.
Dehring, who was CEO of the ICC World Cup held in the Caribbean in 2007, visually and performance-wise the current West Indies teams, just don’t look the part.
“There is no West Indies team that when they step out onto the field, they don’t look like the athlete of the day,” Dehring argued while speaking on the popular Mason and Guest sports talk show in Barbados on Tuesday. “That is from a visual aesthetic perspective. We were the athletes, we were the thing people would pay to come and see. And when you look at the West Indies team now at the Test level or even at the recent T20 World Cup, it’s shocking, a jarring visual to see how athletic the Bangladeshis are, the Indians, the Australians, the Pakistanis; we are rotund, overweight, looking unfit.”
Dehring called into question the much-ballyhooed fitness tests that the West Indies selectors often use as criteria for selecting players for international duty. “I don’t care what fitness test they tell me some of these guys pass, I don’t believe it. I’m sorry. Can you imagine a Viv Richards in his day walking out with a paunch?”
Dehring said it was very disheartening to see how low the West Indies have fallen notwithstanding the talent that some of the players possess. “Of course, they have some talent and every once in a while they will perform but it can’t be sustained because they are not professional. They are not even professionals as individuals much less to try and have a professional cricket team.”
