Former West Indies batting legend Brian Lara has said that the cricket infrastructure in the Caribbean is terrible and it will take between five to 10 years to bring the sport back up to a top level in the region again.
The former West Indies captain was speaking at the recent Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) at World Travel Market in London, where he was part of a contingent selling Trinidad and Tobago as a tourist destination.
He said, “We are still a very long way to go. In terms of consistency, West Indies lack that, and that is not something to regain overnight. I think out infrastructure is terrible. Administratively, we have got it wrong on many occasions.”
“Our player-bard relationship has gone wrong for many years, gone sour and we need to improve these things, fix it, set a base, get the infrastructure in, and then think about five, 10 years down the line. So it might be a dismal outlook, but we keep just trying to put a plaster on every sore that we have, it’s not going to work.
“So I hope one day somebody’s going to take it up and really get things going,” he said.
“On any given day, I think we’ve got the best talented cricketers in the world. It’s always been the case over the years, since even before my days… Cricket has gone a long way now. Talent is only a very small part compared to 20, 30 years ago, when it was major part – your physical fitness, your talent played a bigger role. Now (with) technology, there are a lot of things coming into play and I say it all the time – we in the West Indies take very good talent and make it average and people in Australia, England and India take average talent and make it very, very good and that is where the problem lies,” Lara said.
