BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – David Williams has encountered severe passport problems that threaten to railroad him for the ICC Champions Trophy later this month in South Africa.
The interim West Indies coach has been a notable absentee from the training camp which started on Monday at Kensington Oval for the 15-member West Indies squad that will take part in the competition.
The training sessions have so far been conducted under the guidance of local coaches Henderson Springer, a former West Indies assistant coach, Roddy Estwick, the former Barbados fast bowler, and Wendell Coppin, the West Indies Cricket Board’s development officer for Barbados.
“In Trinidad & Tobago at the moment, we are switching from the old passports to the new digital, machine-readable passports,” said Derek Ali, legal consultant to the WICB, at a WICB news conference on Tuesday.
“The administrative bureaucracy in immigration is out of this world. They are taking anywhere from three to six months to get an appointment to secure the passport.”
Ali, who lives and practises law in Trinidad, explained that Williams was trying to get a new passport, since his previous travel document had run out of pages.
“Once David was confirmed for South Africa, there are certain visas he would have required because of the route they would have to take,” said Ali.
“The British High Commission returned his passport because it had run out of pages, and there was nowhere to affix the visa – which is a picture visa – over two pages.”
Ali disclosed that Williams returned to the T&T Immigration Department for further assistance, but he was told there was a backlog of requests.
“They told him, they would like to help him, but the problem was there a one-year waiting list, and he now came, so they would have to see what they could do to assist him,” said the T&T attorney-at-law.
“Now, when he gets it, he has to get it back to the various high commissions to have the visas affixed. The WICB has intervened, and people at the level of the ministerial level have also intervened to expedite the matter, but it seems nobody is giving the priority that they should to David getting his passport.”
Williams was elevated to the position of interim coach, following the sacking of John Dyson last month because of a contractual row with the WICB.
