“Rest assured though,” the last sentence in my message to the Cricket West Indies (CWI) employee Randy Howard on the first morning of the recent ill-fated Test match in Kingston, Jamaica began, “that this is not the end of the matter.”
On the Tuesday which would have been the third day of the Test, I visited with my attorney on Evelyn Street in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, to see if there was any recourse. Because surely, I thought, at least an apology was in-order.
“They are just going to blow you off and say that they didn’t get it,” I was advised. ‘It’ being the media accreditation application which I had submitted – or thought I had – on June 7, 2025.
But I had already promised Howard that he would be hearing from me one way or the other. And so, there was no turning-back.
West Indies – when a Test series is lost well before its course has been run – ‘play-for-pride’. So, will I.
Thirty (30) years ago, I had written on the Australia – West Indies Test match at Sabina Park. And so, thirty years removed, I was keen as a freelance writer, to see whether West Indies cricket had progressed or regressed. Need not it be said, which way the graph has been trending.
But sadly, the downward slope not only applies to West Indies on the cricket field. It applies to their stakeholder relations as well.
Whether my on-line application for CWI media accreditation was successfully received or not, is not the point.
The point is that on June 7, 2025, by e-mail, I requested confirmation from Jerome Taylor – another CWI operative, one way or the other. None was forthcoming.
Below, is the back-and-forth between CWI’s Randy Howard and myself on Saturday, July 12, 2025.
RH:RF: “As you have been told multiple times Ray.. there is no accreditation for you.”
RF:RH: “Why is there none, when I applied in a timely manner? Was the application received, but rejected? Please explain. Thanks … Ray Ford.
RH:RF: “As you were told…. your name is not in the system, which means you did not apply.. and Jerome already alerted me that you viewed receiving emails as being in the system.. this is not the case.. I’ll repeat. You did not apply because your name is not in the accreditation system. There is nothing I can do for you.”
Which elicited this:
RF:RH: “Your previous response – as to my being advised multiple times – is coming across as curt. I only enquired again this morning.
Mr. Howard, need I say, that I am not some sort of persistent child.
I did submit an application, and even though asking, I received no confirmation that my application was not in order.
I will not persist, but will buy my ticket to the ground.
Rest assured though, that this is not the end of the matter.”
Just like how Randy Howard could do nothing for me, there is now nothing I can do for either him or his employer. I am now ventilating the matter.
I have been a freelance writer on West Indies cricket for close to forty (40) years.
Beginning with ‘Blueprint for Profitability’ in the December 1993 issue of the Red Stripe Caribbean Cricket Quarterly, my writings on West Indies cricket began appearing in the Caribbean press.
And seven years before that in the January 1986 issue of The Cricketer International magazine – then the world’s largest-selling cricket magazine – the first of my three West Indies cricketer-profiles ‘Life after Lloyd’, appeared.
Randy Howard and Jerome Foster should know, that when I showed-up at Sabina Park, it was not just to eat a piece of fried chicken.
