Why Marlon changed his tune

When the writers of a successful comedy are asked to cough up a sequel, they often fall back on the wheeze of sending the characters on tour, enabling them to use all the same jokes from the first film, only this time set in Hong Kong.

Some people apply the same principle to their personal lives. Your relationship may be a simmering cauldron of resentment and bitterness; your friends may be embroiled in a tangled web of secrets that will one day unravel like the plot of a bloody Shakespearean tragedy, but hey, maybe a holiday is just what we all need.

Sadly, as Hangover 2 and Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties, not to mention the persistently high divorce rate, prove, relocating to a more exotic setting cannot save a marriage or a comic idea that has passed its sell-by date.

If you've ever been on one of these holidays, you'll know how it goes. Things start to unravel before you've cleared passport control and after a blazing row at a bistro, a series of uncomfortable silences at breakfast, and a tearful scene at the hotel buffet, one of your party takes the decision to call the whole thing off.

Back home, as soon as you're over your jet lag, the recriminations can begin. One of the holidaymakers (who for the purposes of this blog we'll call Dwayne) wants to sort it out. Unfortunately, his friend (let's call him Marlon) is not in the mood:

"I thought you were okay with coming home early?"

"Oh you thought I was okay with it?"

"Yeah, I thought you were okay with it."

"Did you ask me if I was okay with it?"

"I asked everyone if they were okay with it and you didn't say anything!"

"You asked everyone but you didn't ask me."

"I asked everyone in the room. If you weren't okay with it, you should have said so."

"So now it's my fault?"

"If you weren't okay with it, why didn't you say anything?"

"Oh so I guess if I didn't say anything, I must have been okay with it."

"Well, clearly you're not okay with it, so let's talk about it."

"No, really, I'm fine. I don't want to talk about it."

"You're not fine, let's talk."

"I don't want to."

"Marlon!"

"I'm tired. I want to lie down."

"Let's sort this out. I don't want this friction between us!

"It's always about you, isn't it?" "Fine. Be like that."

At first glance, the curtailed West Indies tour of India appears to fit the usual pattern of eyebrow-raising fiascos in which Caribbean cricket seems to specialise. The West Indies players have gone on strike and flown home? The WICB have elected a pelican as chairman? Marlon is squabbling with Dwayne? Yeah, figures.

But is there something else going on here? Perhaps Marlon had been reading the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli, who in Chapter Two of The Prince states:

"The man who wishes to promote his interests should never disagree with his King, rather, he should passive-aggressively go along with everything his King does, then, at a suitable moment, strongly imply that even though he was present when the decision was made, it was nothing to do with him."

Is Marlon up to something? Could he be deliberately distancing himself from the shambles in India, whilst masquerading as the man who is neither of the WIPA or the WICB in order to promote his own leadership credentials?

On the one hand this theory makes sense. West Indies already have three captains, so if he wants a turn, he's left with two options: invent a new format of cricket in which he can be captain, or depose one of the incumbents.

On the other hand, this theory makes no sense at all. If Marlon is intelligent enough to undermine Dwayne to further his leadership ambition, then he's also intelligent enough to realise that the last thing any cricketer should want to be is captain of West Indies.