YET another effort has been made to revive long suffering West Indies cricket. It is likely to be the last.
The necessary medication that needs to be administered was presented last Wednesday in a comprehensive report by an independent committee of eminent West Indians. It spent three months of consultations, interviews, deliberations and meetings fulfilling its mandate to ‘review the administrative and governance structure of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB)’.
Instigated by Caribbean Community (Caricom) governments, through their cricket governance sub-committee, it was jointly agreed on and appointed by the Caricom group and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) after a straight-talking meeting last April that stressed the urgency of the situation.
Headed by Dr. Eudine Bariteau, principal of the University of the West Indies (UWI) campus in Barbados, it comprised the presidents of the Caribbean Development Bank Dr. Warren Smith and the Caribbean Court of Justice Sir Denis Byron, former West Indies vice-captain and wicket-keeper Deryck Murray and Grenada Cricket Association president and WICB director Dwayne Gill.
It was a heavyweight body that pulled no punches in assessing the condition of the WICB and the action needed to raise West Indies cricket from its sick bed.
The doctors prescribed and the patient accepted the treatment, no matter how harsh it might be.
And it was harsh. The report’s main recommendation was that the WICB ‘should be immediately dissolved and all current members resign while an interim board is selected’. That would evolve into a completely new organisation with a structure and composition ‘radically different from the now proven obsolete governance framework’.
The WICB had twice rejected similar tough therapy stipulated by panels it commissioned itself. Both came to basically the same conclusions as the Bariteau report.
Former Jamaica prime minister P. J. Patterson presented the findings and recommendations of his committee in 2007. He later complained that its preparation represented ‘a wasted year of my life’.
St. Kitts Queen’s Counsel Charles Wilkin charged that his committee’s proposal was turned down by WICB directors who ‘wanted to preserve at all costs all of their positions on the board’.
Julian Hunte was then WICB president.
Dave Cameron, who succeeded him in 2012, was vice-president. Some of the directors are still in place.
The significant difference this time was noted by Dr. Keith Mitchell, prime minister of Grenada who is chairman of the relevant Caricom sub-commitee. It was that leaders of the cricketing Caribbean governments, rather than the WICB, initiated the intervention.
They were concerned with the impact of the West Indies’ lowly status on the psyche of a public still passionate over a game that had been a metaphor for sporting excellence. United, they carry considerable clout.
In presenting the group’s findings, Bariteau said its harsh conclusion was based on the reality that West Indies cricket is ‘in a state of disarray’.
It described its rapport with players, and more recently suspended head coach Phil Simmons, as ‘fractious and problematic’. It held that it was mainly a structural issue.
‘The residual point is that there is a breakdown in key relationships necessary for the good management and performance of the team,’ it stated.
It noted that the men’s team was now ranked eighth in Tests and ninth in ODIs, meaning that it failed to qualify for the Champions Trophy in England in 2017. It is the first time since it won the inaugural World Cup in England in 1975 that the West Indies would be absent from an International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament.
The state of affairs has remained constant over the past two decades. The current disastrous tour of Sri Lanka has emphasised the decline.
The report also pays attention to women’s cricket. The West Indies are ranked fifth out of the 10 international teams by the ICC. It recently defeated Pakistan in both an ODI and T20 series in the Caribbean.
It regards the ICC’s growing emphasis on this aspect of the game, along with the performances of the West Indies team, as ‘a potential area of strength for cricket in the 21st century Caribbean’.
At the same time, it charges that it is not receiving the support it deserves from the WICB and the territorial boards. The concern is that, without reform, the women could drift into the same ‘state of disarray’ as the men.
The Bariteau report referred to the ‘potentially dangerous’ breakdown in contacts between the WICB and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), triggered by the team’s premature withdrawal from last year’s tour of India.
Significantly, the BCCI’s working committee is set to review the case and its US$42 million claim for compensation for revenue lost from the West Indies pullout at a meeting on Tuesday. One way or the other, the WICB’s future should the determined by then.
Mitchell expects the WICB to comply with the recommendations of the report ‘since it participated fully’ in setting it up.
Signs are that president Cameron, backed by other directors who represent the six territorial boards that are its shareholders, are reluctant to conform but will fight to keep the WICB intact.
After receiving the Bariteau report, Cameron told Mitchell it would be discussed at the WICB’s scheduled quarterly meeting on December 12 ‘with a view to enhancing the existing work of the secretariat and the board of directors’. After that, it would choose a team of directors to present its case to the Caricom sub-committee.
Mitchell seemed to interpret it as a delaying tactic. He advised Cameron that the situation was critical enough to require a session well before December. Given the report’s main recommendation, the WICB should be dissolved by then, Cameron and the other members resigned and the interim board in place.
‘That can’t be a demonstration of the urgency that we seek,’ Mitchell said. ‘The heads of governments are certainly looking for an urgent meeting.’ He is still awaiting a reply.
Cameron’s belief in his invincibility is likely to be decisive in determining the outcome.
No president has been more repeatedly disparaged by public and press. Undeterred, he used the internet to post a defiant rejoinder.
“They’ve criticised you. They’ve doubted you. They’ve lied on you. They’ve done all they can do, but one thing they can’t do is stop you,” he tweeted during his first term in office.
They were not the words of one who would bow easily to pressure. Quite the opposite. For the WICB to collapse under his watch would be a telling blow to his ego.
The combined power of Caribbean governments and the self-evident need for reform stand in his way.
