Tony Becca, Contributing Editor
THE NEWS coming out of the West Indies Cricket Board meeting last weekend that, starting in January, there will be a few changes to the regional four-day competition should be welcomed by all - and particularly for those who believe that a good strong regional tournament is the only way to produce a good strong West Indies team.
In a move aimed at lifting the standard of play in the regional first-class tournament, the Board, on the advice of its Cricket Committee, has decided to once more try a format that will include return matches and one that, as it was and should always have been, will limit participation to national teams.
That is great for West Indies cricket and it is great for two simple reasons.
HOMETOWN ADVANTAGE
Apart from the fact that the hometown advantage can be decisive in determining the winners of a contest and that return matches, home and away fixtures, will level the playing field, the first reason is that the format will provide more cricket to those from whom the West Indies team will be selected, and by doing so, it will make them better prepared and ready to perform when called upon.
Unlike previous years, and but for 1997 when that format of return matches was tried and then discarded, each team will now not only play an equal number of matches at home and away and therefore have an equal chance of winning the title: they also will be playing as many as 10 matches each season.
The second reason is that with the West Indies B team and the invited A teams from other countries out of it, only the best will be in action, and that is a step in the right direction.
REGION'S YOUNGSTERS
With an annual regional Under 15 tournament and an annual regional Under 19 tournament, the region's youngsters have a platform on which to parade their skills, and as many have been saying, there was no reason why a West Indies B team, a team of Under 23 players, a team that, by the rules, could not have won the title, should have been in the senior tournament.
Remembering that each national team selected its squad first and that the West Indies selectors selected the B squad afterwards, if any one of those players in the B team was good enough, he would have been in his national team and not in the B team.
In other words, if the players in the B team were good enough, they would have been in their national team, and if they could not get into their national team, they should not be playing in the competition.
Without a B team, the young players who wish to play in the regional tournament will have to develop their skills, will have to perform in order to get into their national teams and that cannot hurt them.
HARD WORK
In fact, in this day and age of young people expecting so much for nothing, that will certainly separate the good ones from the average ones the ones who are willing to work in order to achieve from the ones who believe that they are God's gift to the sport and will have an easy path to the top.
Next season, the Carib Beer Cup will be contested by national teams, there will be no so-called development team of players who cannot get into their own national team, there will be no A team that is neither not good enough nor interested enough to lift the standard of the tournament, and there will be no easy matches, no free runs and no free wickets.
As it was once upon a time, it will be a contest between Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands, each team will play 10 matches, it will be the best against the best week after week, such a contest should provide the right atmosphere for the full development of the region's talent, and out of it should come some well groomed, solid players who will be ready to perform when their time comes.
It is a pity that the Board shelved return matches in 1998 after one season and that it wasted four years while experimenting with the West Indies B team and the visiting A teams.
Thank God, however, the Board has seen the light.
In going for this format - a format that will exclude a team of youngsters who, generally, are not ready for that level of play, and a team of outsiders who most times appear to be on vacation, the teams in action will now not only be playing more matches: they will also be involved in a really serious tournament - a tournament which, all things being equal, will have no easy matches, no rest week.
