The Editor, Sir:

Reports have emerged that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is in discussion with successful West Indies cricket team coach John Dyson and has offered him a deal significantly better than he currently enjoys with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). One could hardly fault John Dyson for accepting the better offer, although there are many professionals who place loyalty above money and in that regard I would expect him, at the very least, to complete his contract that ends in November 2010. But I find this new 'attack' from the ECB on West Indies cricket particularly galling for a number of reasons.

Unaware

The ECB would hardly have been unaware of the seemingly deliberate strategy of English counties to restrict West Indian players in their county sides at a time when there emerged a proliferation of players from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and even Zimbabwe. The timing of this restriction just happened to have coincided with the dramatic decline in West Indian cricket fortunes that started in the series loss to Australia in 1995 and continues up until today, 14 years later.

It is an open secret that some in the English cricket set-up felt, with some justification I will agree, that they were providing the avenues for West Indian cricketers to turn around and dominate them. Amazingly, it really is not a problem when the same system assists in allowing Australia to dominate and as we have been seeing in its current series with South Africa, Australia's decline has been nothing more than a minor aberration in its continued dominance of world cricket. So back to the present.

West Indies has beaten England in a series for the first time in 10 years. So it appears it is time to shut them down one more time. There are many other outstanding coaches on the market including John Buchanan, who was the architect of the dominant Australians in the modern era, and Shane Warne himself, who is reputed to be perhaps as great a coach as he has been a bowler and captain. With its deeper pockets, either of these or any other could be approached. But it seems the strategy is to kill the egg with the alligator.

Bad manners

On top of that, it does seem to me to be patently bad manners to be approaching the coach of your hosts even while a series is in progress. And let us not forget that this same WICB gave its blessing to one Adam Stanford to sponsor a joint series with the West Indian and English teams in addition to the ECB's own planned Stanford-sponsored four-nation 20/20 tournament. To turn around now and insult your hosts by engaging in this type of predatory behaviour is not only very bad manners, but unethical business practice.

I am, etc.,

HOPETON MORRISON

hmorrison@stccu.com

Kingston 8