The running up and down and head scratching has started, and West Indies Cricket is again under the microscope, grappling with what is to be done, now that the buffoons who were given specific tasks to pave Success Road, have flopped, yet again.

That Australia trimmed the collective ego of the West Indies Cricket team, and added a little whitewash to the walls of their continued success, was not unexpected. 

Again, the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy, which goes to the winners of a Test series between both teams, will remain in Australia since it was taken there with little force in 1994.

More of the cracks that started showing years ago have emerged and there is no signal in sight of brighter days to come.

The fact that Australian champion fast bowler Mitchell Starc led the rout of the West Indies’ second innings inside three days of a Test match at Sabina Park last week was not as significant as how many runs the host team made. A total of 27 runs was just not on, and Mitch’s very Starc reminder of how vulnerable you just cannot become on a cricket field, resulted in him harvesting the incredible figures of six wickets for nine runs.

When someone gives you a six for a nine, it means that he would have bamboozled you – trickery at its worst. But that was just not one of those cases.

So, what’s next for the West Indies? Like I intimated earlier, the big talk has begun, and some of the legends of the Windies who have been neglected over the years – Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd, Dessie Haynes and Shivnarine Chanderpaul – are being summoned to adjudicate on the state of play without the frills of technology.

The problem is that changes will first have to be made to the administrative structure of West Indies Cricket before anything else can be touched on the field of play.

There is no more time for the ‘Shallow’ road that the people of the region have been riding on. The composition of the tactical setup must be adjusted. 

Here is what is happening now: All members of the management and coaching staff were mediocre players when they wore the clothes of the West Indies – you name them,  starting with Daren Sammy, the so-called czar … head coach of all three formats, lone selector, chief talker of nonsense, and it goes on to people like Floyd Reifer, a failed batsman, fast bowler Ravi Rampaul who spent more time in the injury room, and Rawl Lewis, the alleged allrounder who never knew how to tie his boot laces properly.

There is no one around who can tell the players what he would have done in tight situations – drawing on experience while West Indies were in a spot of bother playing in India, Pakistan, or Australia, and going on to take five wickets, or score a big hundred.

In short, if you invest in mediocrity, you will reap mediocrity.

That time of the year again for NWC

It’s that time again, folks, as the National Water Commission (NWC) rolls out yet another round of water restrictions on the suffering public, especially those in the Corporate Area (Kingston and St Andrew). So, there is nothing new about this watery ritual that every political administration in power vows to abolish year after year.

The usual excuses have been unveiled already – low to no rainfall over a sustained period, slow and reduced inflows into the area’s two main catchment facilities – the Mona Reservoir and the Hermitage Dam, too much silt, among others.

The arguments and debates have begun already, too; what can be done to improve inflows? Are we all not tired of this revolving circus?

Years ago, I had proposed a massive emphasis to be placed on the improvement of water supply across Jamaica, with budgetary support that the sector had never had before.

Instead, that emphasis was shifted to a project called, ‘How to waste money in the public sector’, with the sub-title: ‘A microscopic focus on getting capital from Cornwall Regional Hospital for nothing’.

And now, here we are, back at the start point of a race that has been false-starting for many years.

One of the ways of reaching the people, is the archaic act of trucking water in times of shortage. In a country that gets more than adequate rainfall annually, the geniuses still cannot find a way to keep the liquid in the pipes, yet their salaries are never late.

Creative ways are still not being found to allow the population to have natural access of water. During the 1970s when Cuba built several micro dams as part of a gift to Jamaica, the unholy influential few howled and screamed about how Fidel Castro and his communist policies would destroy Jamaica.

Had Jamaica improved on that foundation laid by Cuba, the question of water shortage would be less talked about these days.

The inconvenience will continue for God knows how long, and by next year this time, we will all gather at the river, the beautiful river, to say the same things all over again.

Farewell Kenneth ‘Bop’ Campbell

Death is always a shocker, and when it strikes one you know well, it is even harder to bear.

Kenneth ‘Bop’ Campbell, the former Jamaica representative at football, who was a member of star-studded Vere Technical High School daCosta Cup teams during the late 1960s, has left us in a state of grief.

A forward and also a member of Winston Chung’s Santos Football Club from the 1960s into the 1970s ‘Bop’ was called to the Jamaica national squad while he was a schoolboy.

When he could not keep up with football at that level during the 1980s, ‘Bop’ was among the first group of players to participate in the inaugural Masters’ League, he representing his beloved Santos, although in the first year he was involved in a horrific accident with Ambassador AB Stewart Stephenson in which he received broken ribs and had to be hospitalised.

The humanitarian side to ‘Bop’ was also something to behold as he cared for many, among them his good friend, Vere, Santos and Jamaica teammate Orville Edwards, who was stricken with renal failure. ‘Bop’ hardly left his side, looking after him at their residence on Lissant Road, across from Kingston College in central Kingston, until Edwards could hold on no longer.

Some may not even know that ‘Bop’ played cricket for Vere Technical, and Kensington Cricket Club in the Senior Cup competition, often batting between numbers three and five, with a best score of 76, and whose technique was way better, than any member of the current West Indies team. But it was his love for music that had him hooked.

Spinning tracks at parties under his Alanzo Hawk brand, ‘Bop’ would always have the crowd rocking with his wide array of selections.

I saw him last at a Tuesday night soul party in St Andrew West Central weeks ago, and it was great vibes as usual.

‘Bop’ must go down in history as a man who contributed in a huge way, towards the development of his nation. Will that national honour come his way now, posthumously?

The J$10.3 million-a-month riddle

Strange, it is, that we are hearing of a monthly rental charge of J$10.3 million by the Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ) directed at the St Thomas Municipal Corporation for use of the highly-rushed Morant Bay Urban Centre in the southeastern parish.

The corporation pays $300,000 a month for the property, which houses it now in the town centre.

Describing the revelation as “a scam”, the municipal representative for the White Horses Division, Hubert Williams, also a former mayor of Morant Bay, told the public that such a move was unrealistic. Unless there is something that the Minister of Local Government and Community Development is not telling us, Williams must be right.

The rent, Williams said, is priced in US dollars and has a seven per cent annual increase. 

For a corporation whose take from the various fees does not exceed 50 per cent of the proposed rent, how then can it work?

If, for some reason, the minister has not commented on the matter yet, he should do so now. Something does not look or smell right.