Last week Monday, 10 February, Cricket West Indies (CWI) proudly released an extended statement under the caption,’ Cricket West Indies passes historic governance reform at Special Meeting of Shareholders.’ The press release stated that its Full Member shareholders had officially approved a historic set of sweeping governance reforms at a Special Meeting of Members of Cricket West Indies Inc. on Sunday, 9 February 2025. It further noted that this landmark decision represents a significant step in modernizing the organization’s governance structure, enhancing accountability, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of West Indies cricket.
The statement which was accompanied by a photograph of the nineteen beaming participants provided a detailed list of all the Key Reforms Implemented. Under Board and Leadership Structure, the changes listed include the introduction of term limits for the President and Vice President, the extension of the President and Vice President’s term from two to three years, the introduction of more female independent directors to enhance gender representation in decision-making, the Implementation of a Strategic Governance Committee, the reduction in the number and size of committees, the increased involvement of independent committee members, the strengthening of recruitment and selection processes to ensure the best-qualified candidates fill leadership positions.
In matters pertaining to Ethical and Compli-ance Measures the CWI will establish a centralized Integrity & Dispute Resolutions Committee to oversee ethics and disciplinary matters along with strengthened financial reporting and disclosure requirements including the public release of annual reports and audited financial statements to enhance transparency and accountability. In the area of Financial Oversight and Risk Management among the developments is the formation of an Audit, Risk and Compliance Com-mittee to improve financial oversight. Several changes are also projected for Gender Equality and Women’s Cricket Development including the introduction of business-class travel for the West Indies Senior Women’s team for all long-haul international flights and the provision of single-room accommodations for the West Indies Senior Women’s team on all international assignments, aligning with the men’s cricket policy.
CWI President Dr. Kishore Shallow, who was quoted extensively in the statement emphasized the collaborative effort that led to these reforms, “For decades, I have championed term limits in leadership, ensuring fresh ideas and new energy at the helm. While the decision was not unanimous, every territorial board stands united in strengthening our organization, upholding transparency, and securing a brighter future for West Indies cricket.”
West Indies cricket fans who have been waiting for over two decades for substantial governance reform will probably greet this grand announcement with lots of skepticism. No one can blame them for being wary in this instance and viewing all these changes as cosmetic. They have been hearing about governance reform since the submission of the Patterson Report way back in 2007. The 139-page report, produced by the former Jamaican Prime Minister P J Patterson, Sir Alister McIntyre and Dr. Ian McDonald laid out a comprehensive framework for restructuring the way the game was being administered in the region. Patterson later lamented wasting a year of his life to prepare a document which was then ignored by the entity that had commissioned it. The WICB’s response a year later to a four-page letter from the Patterson Committee enquiring why the region had been kept in the dark as to the outcome of the WICB’s deliberations and the fate of the report, was to point out that it had failed to deal with the many challenges facing the game in the region.
“Among these issues [not addressed by the report] are the negotiation of players’ rights, intellectual property rights of cricketers, trade negotiation, the financing of international cricket, the issue of technology and the development of players and, importantly, the issue of television and internet broadcasting rights,” WICB’s reply stated. The board was blatantly tap dancing around the actual issue at hand.
It was the beginning of a replicating pattern of behaviour which the West Indian public would simply grow weary of, thus, increasing their disgust for the controlling body. The Wilkin Report arrived in 2012, the Barriteau Report followed in 2015, and the Wehby Report (upon which these recent changes are based) in August 2020. Each report saw no action taken by the board followed by weak promises to examine it, and then essentially no further action.
The crux of every report was the dissolution of the board and its replacement by a professional body. Charles Wilkin, the St. Kitts-Nevis Queen’s Counsel, who immediately resigned from the WICB Governance Committee once he realized that his report was destined to suffer the same fate of Patterson’s, gathering dust in a backroom, charged, … “the [WICB] directors wanted to preserve at all costs all of their positions on the board.”
Wilkin’s sentiments still ring true today. An attempt to vote on these changes at a meeting in December last was greeted with a boycott by the Barbadian and Guyanese cricket boards. Once again, CWI has opted to forgo dissolution. The exhaustive Barriteau Report was damning in its review of the WICB’s “anachronistic, antiquated and obsolete” governance structure and called for its immediate dissolution and replacement by an interim management committee, noting that,” These two key measures are absolutely necessary in order to transform and modernize the governance, management, administration and the playing of the game.”
After all the years of hopscotching around the issues the board seems to have agreed to all these changes whilst circumventing the heart of the matter, its dissolution. With the same players remaining in situ, how can the West Indies fans expect any changes?