The Jamaica Cricket Association's (JCA) annual awards function held at the Hilton Kingston Hotel recently was a wonderful affair.

In my humble opinion, but for one or two presentations, it was from start to finish a thing of beauty and something of which the cricket fraternity should be proud.

In previous years, the function, more or less, was a boring cocktail party which seemed to drag on forever.

This year, however, it was a lovely dinner party. The ballroom was beautifully decorated, the presentation of awards flowed nicely, the music was great, the gathering was magnificent and the guest speaker, former prime minister, the Right Honourable P. J. Patterson - speaking on the problems between the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players' Association - was on the ball.

There was one disappointing aspect, though.

The disappointment had nothing to do with one or two 'back-patting' and obviously 'thank-you-very-much' presentations.

The disappointment was the award of the Cricketer of the Year to a female cricketer.

There is no question that 19-year-old Stafanie Taylor performed well, and that her record of 485 runs at an average of 37.3 with one century and two 50s in 14 one-day matches and 171 runs at an average of 28.5 with two 50s in Twenty/20 cricket deserves recognition.

The question, however, is this: Did she deserve the Cricketer of the Year award?

The answer is no, and it is no for many reasons.

As a woman cricketer, she should be compared with women cricketers and not with men cricketers.

Like every other sport around the world in which men and women participate, the JCA should have had two awards - one for the Cricketer of the Year and one for the Woman Cricketer of the Year.

When it comes to skill, not to mention strength, a woman cannot be compared with any good or even not so good male cricketer. A woman fast bowler, for example, bowls at a top speed of around 50 miles per hour, while a man, most of them, bowls at an average of around 85 miles per hour. A woman cannot spin the ball as much as a man can, and in an attempt to run out a batsman, a woman cannot run as fast as a man can and even if she can stop a good hit from a man, she cannot throw the ball to the stumps as quickly as a man can.

Taylor played Grace Shield cricket at Eltham High, but it would be interesting to see her batting against one like Jerome Taylor bowling at 90 miles an hour, or bowling to one like Brendan Nash, who loves to bat.

As good as she is as a woman, as successful as she is playing against women at the highest level, chances are she would not last long against Jerome Taylor and probably would not even get an appeal against Nash.

Recommendation

May be that is why, after they were asked by the board to make a recommendation, the national selectors recommended Odean Brown. Maybe that is why the board members did not inform the selectors that their recommendation had been rejected, despite the claim of consensus, and but for the president, maybe that is why every director I spoke to after the function said they never did agree with the choice. Maybe that is why the president said to me minutes after the function, "maybe we can look at it next year".

A man and a woman compete at different levels, against players of different skill level, and it is simply not fair to men to equate their performance with that of the women; just as it would not be fair to compare the performances of a young cricketer in a junior tournament with that of a senior player in a senior tournament.

Akeem Dewar, for example, was brilliant while taking 27 wickets with a best of seven for 43 at an average of 11.48, and while scoring 241 runs in four innings with one century at an average of 241.00 in the regional youth tournament.

He was, however, not even considered for the Cricketer of the Year award, and correctly so.

As good as Lorena Ochoa and Michelle Wie are, they could never ever be named the number one golfer of the year, in any year. As good as Serena and Venus Williams are, they could never ever be ranked the number one tennis player of the year, in any year.

None of those lovely women can be compared with the men - not with the likes of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, not with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

It is as simple as that.

Not even the International Cricket Council, which handed the Cricketer of the Year award to Mitchell Johnson and not to someone like Claire Taylor, whose performances make her the premier batsman in the women's game, compare the performances of men and women much more recognise the performances of women as being superior to those of men in the men's game.

The International Cricket Council, like the RJR Sports Foundation, like every international association, separate awards for men and women and that is how it should be; even in Jamaica where people tend to do things to satisfy their own agenda.

Stafanie Taylor is good, no question about that. Probably she is as good as, or even better than women players like Joyce Miller of years gone by, like the Coombs twins - Molly and Polly - like Angela Brown and Yolande Geddes, and even one like Vivalyn Latty-Scott who was, in her day, almost in a class of her own.

Women in sport have been good for sport, women in sport have added to the attraction of sport and there have been some great women in sport. I have enjoyed watching women in sport parade their skill and I have spent a lot of time cheering on women in sport.

Just like thousands of sportsmen around the world, however, right now, cricketers like Taylor, Jerome Taylor, that is, and Nash, must be wondering just what is happening in Jamaica.

Rare victory

In February, Taylor cut down men who really can bat while taking an amazing five wickets for 11 runs off nine overs and routing England for 51 on a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon at Sabina Park to give the West Indies a stunning and rare victory.

In March, at Queen's Park Oval, Nash batted and batted for 330 minutes and scored 109 runs against bowlers who really can bowl to ensure that the West Indies held on to win the series 1-0.

The directors of the JCA, those who voted for Stafanie Taylor, not as the Woman Cricketer of the Year but as Jamaica's Cricketer of the Year, probably not only forgot, among others, those two performances - performances which were on the game's biggest stage, but also, as it is with almost if not every game that men and women play, that women's cricket is simply not, at least not yet, in the class of men's cricket - not even in the West Indies.