So the head­line above is a broad per­spec­tive, which all crick­et-lov­ing Bar­ba­di­ans, whether for­mer play­ers, cur­rent play­ers, as­pir­ing play­ers, or mere­ly the cit­i­zens of this coun­try (Bar­ba­dos), should be con­cerned about.

How­ev­er, the swift and se­vere re­al­i­ty is that that sort of think­ing ap­pears to have dis­si­pat­ed in re­cent years. There are some that throw the blame quite square­ly on the shoul­ders of the Bar­ba­di­an crick­et au­thor­i­ties. And whether it is an ap­par­ent dis­dain to­wards West In­dies crick­et be­cause of lead­er­ship bat­tles, that were lost in the past or just a mind­set of en­vy and jeal­ousy or as some may say, a per­pet­u­al de­sire to un­der­mine what can­not be ex­tin­guished or per­haps some oth­er ra­tio­nale that no one is aware about. We will not know for cer­tain, but there is a clear dis­con­nect with Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) and those that man­age the sports out of Bar­ba­dos.

The re­cent non-at­ten­dance at a meet­ing by both the Bar­ba­dos and Guyana crick­et of­fi­cials has hint­ed at some sort of open dis­qui­et and per­haps even dis­like among per­sons who have sat to­geth­er for years. 

The re­cent news that Ray­mon Reifer, who was cap­tain of the Bar­ba­dos team that did not play the CWI 50-Over fi­nal last year de­spite the in­struc­tions of the match ref­er­ee, has now been se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent Bar­ba­dos in the up­com­ing four-day re­gion­al tour­na­ment sug­gests a lot about how the sport is man­aged in the re­gion.

While we have been told that Reifer’s op­po­site num­ber, John Camp­bell, the cap­tain of the Ja­maican team that al­so failed to ap­pear for the 50 overs fi­nal, was banned, it ap­pears that Reifer, whether through an ap­peal (that ap­par­ent­ly is pend­ing), will be al­lowed to put on his whites and play crick­et again with­out any of­fi­cial judg­ment.

Be­low are ex­cerpts from the CWI re­lease is­sued on De­cem­ber 6, 2024, on the abort­ed 50 overs fi­nal:

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) has an­nounced that Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons cap­tain John Camp­bell has been sus­pend­ed for four match­es fol­low­ing a Lev­el 3 Charge re­lat­ed to his con­duct dur­ing the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Fi­nal against Bar­ba­dos Pride on No­vem­ber 23, 2024.  

The charge, is­sued by Match Ref­er­ee Re­on King in ac­cor­dance with the CWI Code of Con­duct for Play­ers and Of­fi­cials, re­lates to Camp­bell’s de­ci­sion to not at­tend the toss as in­struct­ed by the um­pires. In a let­ter to the Match Ref­er­ee, Camp­bell apol­o­gised for the dis­rup­tion.

“I sin­cere­ly re­gret any dis­rup­tion caused dur­ing the fi­nal and ac­knowl­edge that my ac­tions may have been per­ceived as re­sis­tance to the match of­fi­cials’ de­ci­sion,” Camp­bell stat­ed.

“It was nev­er my in­ten­tion to un­der­mine their au­thor­i­ty or bring the game in­to dis­re­pute. I ful­ly ac­knowl­edge the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing the in­tegri­ty of the game and the need for ad­her­ence to the rules and de­ci­sions of the of­fi­cials.”

CWI di­rec­tor of crick­et Miles Bas­combe con­firmed the sus­pen­sion, high­light­ing the im­por­tance of Camp­bell’s ad­mis­sion in de­ter­min­ing the sanc­tion.

“We ap­pre­ci­ate Mr. Camp­bell’s ac­knowl­edge­ment of the sit­u­a­tion and his sin­cere apol­o­gy. In light of his ad­mis­sion and demon­strat­ed re­morse, CWI has ap­plied the min­i­mum sanc­tion of a four-match ban for a Lev­el 3 of­fence as a mat­ter of le­nien­cy. This will be served dur­ing the 2025 CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Tour­na­ment,” he said.

Bas­combe al­so com­ment­ed: “This de­ci­sion re­in­forces the crit­i­cal role of cap­tains in up­hold­ing the val­ues of sports­man­ship and re­spect for the game’s in­tegri­ty. We trust that John will use this ex­pe­ri­ence to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing pos­i­tive­ly to West In­dies crick­et and serve as a role mod­el mov­ing for­ward.

In ad­dress­ing the broad­er im­pli­ca­tions of the in­ci­dent, Bas­combe al­so com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Bar­ba­dos Pride cap­tain Ray­mon Reifer, who is fac­ing a sim­i­lar charge. 

“At this stage, Ray­mon Reifer has not re­spond­ed to the charges. Should he not re­spond, the mat­ter would pro­ceed to the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee. Our goal is to pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty and en­sure that all play­ers un­der­stand the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­spect on and off the field,” he said.

Since then, state­ments and com­ments have been cir­cu­lat­ed, re­port­ed­ly from a lawyer rep­re­sent­ing Reifer, who has stat­ed that he (Reifer) was not giv­en a fair chance to have his say on the mat­ter and the process may not have been cor­rect, or words to that ef­fect.

So, with­out be­ing told all the lat­est facts by CWI (via their web­site), we can on­ly as­sume that the Bar­ba­dos ap­peal, if it has been lodged, whether as a group or at least as the cap­tain, has not been heard as yet, and there­in lies an­oth­er set of con­cerns and pos­si­ble ques­tions as fol­lows:

1. Why is the ap­peal tak­ing so long, if in­deed there is one on?

2. Is the Crick­et West In­dies dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee so busy dur­ing the Christ­mas fes­tiv­i­ties that it is un­able to ad­dress this mat­ter?

3. How should Ja­maica and their banned cap­tain ac­cept all of this?

4. Af­ter Mr. Bas­combe spoke on the im­por­tance, and right­ful­ly so, of 'Cap­tains,' are we wit­ness­ing dou­ble stan­dards by CWI?

5. Is Crick­et West In­dies afraid of the rulers of Bar­ba­dos crick­et? … We can on­ly hope that there is no con­duit to an­oth­er ob­jec­tive with CWI elec­tions on the hori­zon.

6. Or is there a be­lief that the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos, with some prod­ding, may call a meet­ing with some of the ap­par­ent­ly dis­en­chant­ed ex­ec­u­tives in Bar­ba­dos crick­et, no mat­ter their po­lit­i­cal flavour, and over a glass or two set­tle this mat­ter.?

In ex­am­in­ing the CWI web­site, there is lit­tle ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on this mat­ter, and this should not be swept un­der the car­pet, and the re­gion needs to take as­sertive ac­tion to pre­vent a re­oc­cur­rence.

CWI must not let Bar­ba­dos es­cape un­pun­ished and Ja­maica suf­fer just be­cause of any fear of a dog­fight. It is al­ready ob­vi­ous that Bar­ba­dos is will­ing to risk the lega­cy of West In­dies crick­et, de­spite all that is be­ing said by some jour­nal­ists in that coun­try.