WEST Indies team manager and legend Joel Garner has hit back at suggestions his side should be relegated to a second division, claiming the once-proud cricket nation was used by countries like Australia and is being abandoned in its time of need.
The former fast bowler says that the International Cricket Council should concentrate on supporting cricket in the West Indies rather than developing Twenty20 in new markets.
Garner guaranteed that with the right funding he could turn around the fortunes of the team in three years. He said that in the 1970s and 1980s local cricket authorities built their bank balances on the crowd-drawing capacities of his team.
Now, he says, with Test cricket in his home struggling for money, cricket authorities would rather invest in developing Twenty20 in China than top-level cricket in the islands.
Garner is upset at calls to introduce a two-tier Test system that would see Australia compete against India, South Africa and England, while the other nations compete in a separate division.
"We are a member of the ICC, we are part of the cricket family at Test-playing level," Garner said.
"Our problems don't start with not having the players. Our problems start with not having the opportunities to play the cricket that would make us a top team again.
"When we were top of the tree, all of us played all over the world. We played cricket for nine or 10 months of the year.
"What is really irritating is that from the 10 years from 1977 to 1987 the West Indies cricketers were an integral part of the Australian landscape. Why? They wanted to build their resources and we were part of it.
"Everybody who wanted to have money in the bank invited the West Indies because the crowds came to watch good cricket, so they were able to build their finances by inviting us, now you are saying `You are no good, go to the second division'."
Australian cricket did grow fat on the record crowds attracted by the "Calypso Kings" of cricket.
In the decade from 1979 to 1989 the West Indies toured regularly and twice played five-Test series to packed houses. In 1984, 86,000 people turned up to watch them play a one-day match at the MCG -- the highest crowd for a regular one-day match at the ground (the World Cup final attracted 87,000).
Garner, Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Clive Lloyd and company were box-office guarantees and even the success of World Series Cricket was built on their exploits.
Garner is annoyed with plans to use money raised at next year's ICC world Twenty20 in the West Indies to develop cricket in places such as China when it should be used to support struggling Test-playing nations.
"You are telling me that Test cricket is dying and Twenty20 is flourishing," he said.
"Of course it is flourishing, they are taking 30 per cent of the developed budget and throwing it at a place that there's no cricket developed. Yes you can develop new markets but you need to put money in the old markets.
"There is nothing wrong with our cricket at a junior level, you look at our under-19 team at the ICC tournaments, we are always up there with all the rest.
"Why not give the West Indies $100 million over five years and say we are going to monitor you. If you do, in three years time I can give you a team that will compete with the rest of the world and will make everybody want to watch West Indies cricket again.
"If you want to preserve world cricket and Test cricket, you need to have a strong West Indies."
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