Moral compass.

“A natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how they should behave”

— Collins English Dictionary

There have been compelling signs in the past 12 to 18 months to suggest that the moral compass in Bermuda sport has gone a bit skewwhiff.

From rationalising the bad and sometimes appalling behaviour of “athletes” as symptomatic of the social climate to seriously testing the waters of public opinion to the point of inviting condemnation and government interference, we are in a worrying existence where the lines between right and wrong are becoming distinctly blurred.

In a normal world, it should not take much to come to the conclusion that the inclusion of an athlete who is about to stand trial for possession of a lethal drug would raise more than a few eyebrows.

But we are not in a normal world; we are in another world.

We are not in the world of the National Football League where Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was forced to sit out the beginning of last season while he answered charges of recklessly assaulting his four-year-old son. He ultimately offered a no contest plea and missed the entire season on unpaid suspension.

Peterson, obviously, is not the only high-profile offender from the NFL to have fallen foul of the courts in recent times. More seriously, Aaron Hernandez was released by the New England Patriots the moment he was charged in connection to the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd. The would-be tight end of the future was found guilty of first-degree murder on Wednesday and sentenced to life in prison.

Since the league took the popular and long-awaited step to improve its image by introducing a new conduct policy in 2007, the “hall of shame” has snared more than a handful of men behaving badly.

We are not in the world of Super Rugby and the Sanzar nations — South African, New Zealand and Australian Rugby — or the National Rugby League in Australia, where Karmichael Hunt, Beau Falloon and Jamie Dowling were stood down from playing and training for their respective clubs in February once they were charged jointly with possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

Hunt has since pleaded guilty to a downgraded charge of simple possession, prompting a six-week suspension and a Aus$30,000 fine (about $23,000), while the other two have had their case adjourned until May.

We are not even in the often lawless world of professional boxing, where former world middleweight champion Michael Nunn — also known as the man who beat the man who ended the last genuine shot at a world title for Bermuda’s Troy Darrell — never fought again after he was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Nunn has nine years remaining on a 24-year sentence after he was found guilty at trial.

We are, however, in a world where we can do the inexplicable then scream bloody murder when someone with otherworldly ideas exposes such thinking as akin to taking a verse or two from Send In the Clowns.

But, put simply, the decision by the Bermuda Cricket Board to name Fiqre Crockwell in the national team for the tour that just finished in Jamaica and the ICC Americas T20 Championship next month is straight from the circus — plain daft. Bozo-esque even.

Bermuda’s cricketers were a laughing stock on the field when they were last in competitive action in Malaysia; now their administrators have incredulously matched that feat in the boardroom with a stumbling, bumbling effort that at best lacks foresight and at worst constitutes wilful negligence.

Crockwell is to be presumed innocent of heroin possession until proven otherwise, but the very fact that his fate will not be determined until after the international cricket commitment in the United States should have informed the BCB, not to mention the player himself, that there are more important issues at hand than playing a game of cricket.

The BCB may very well claim the moral high ground should Crockwell be reprieved on May 27. However, it is to be hoped that any triumphal chest-beating would be substituted by a collective sigh of relief.

For if this goes the other way, the damage to cricket and the brand that administrators are trying to present its corporate sponsors could be incalculable.

The sensible call would have been for Crockwell to go away and sort out his personal problems — for they are personal problems, nothing to do with cricket or his Bermuda team-mates — and then come back, if he can.

It is right for the BCB to offer support but support to the point of having blind faith is a dangerous gamble that could leave the game in the dark at a time when it needs all the friends it can get.