IF DAVE CAMERON represents the lowest of the low when it comes to the administration of West Indies cricket, then the former officials now calling for the regional game to be rescued from his clutches need to first acknowledge their own roles in the protracted downward spiral that has brought us to this point.
With the exception of Charles Wilkin, who functioned as chairman of a governance committee whose key recommendations regarding the administrative structure of the WICB were studiously ignored, the other five making the case for a forensic audit of the organisation and the more strident intervention of Caricom, were key functionaries in a system defined by aloofness and a lack of transparency.
Can any one of former presidents Pat Rousseau and Ken Gordon, former CEO Bruce Aanensen, former corporate secretary Tony Deyal, and former communications manager Imran Khan seriously claim to have contributed in any tangible way to a board that was more accountable to the people of the Caribbean?
Can anyone ever recall a period when the WICB operated in a manner that appeared to be responsive to the will of the fans or enjoyed the unqualified trust and confidence of the players?
From the start of Rousseau’s tenure at the helm of the regional body in 1996 to the end of Khan’s time in office just prior to the general elections in Guyana in May of last year, was there any time at all when the WICB’s governance reflected the perspective that “West Indies cricket belongs to the people of the West Indies, not the WICB”, as Gordon stated in part of his contribution to Thursday’s joint communiqué?
Even if there is ample justification for a forensic audit to ensure that all revenues coming into the WICB have been properly accounted for, these individuals all stand accused of collective and convenient blindness if they are suggesting that the WICB operated as a fully transparent organisation during their time in office.
This is by no means intended to question the honesty and integrity of the individuals making this latest plea for some sort of rescue effort for West Indies cricket via the reining in of the present administration.
Still, the question has to be asked: what did any one of them do to change the corporate culture of secrecy at the WICB?
Gordon, who served a single term as WICB president in 2007 and 2008, says “We need to lift the clouded veil which now surrounds that body. Answers are required and this can be a first step to return to the transparency required of a body which is a major beneficiary of regional resources and private sponsorship.”
When was there not a veil of secrecy enveloping the WICB? Exhortations for a return to transparency presume that such a time actually existed previously. When was that?
Even in the era of unprecedented West Indian dominance of world cricket from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, the administrative style of the WICB, although just a comparatively skeletal operation, faced repeated accusations of arrogance and indifference towards Caribbean people and Caribbean leaders.
Speaking of the heads of Caricom, it is already blindingly clear that there is no chance of a unified position by the region’s key politicians in taking any form of strident action to break the stranglehold of the WICB. So Wilkin’s repeating of the suggestion that Caricom governments should “refuse permission for use of the stadia and refuse them access to regional cricket grounds” rings hollow in the context of the failure of the umbrella political organisation even to achieve unanimity on last year’s fundamental recommendation by the Barriteau committee for a disbanding of the existing management structure at the board.
In essence, West Indian disunity over cricket matters insulates the West Indies Cricket Board from any sort of meaningful challenge to its authority.
In any event, it is highly unlikely that the International Cricket Council will ever sanction political intervention, whatever their own misgivings over the seemingly interminable litany of woes that has transformed the once mighty kings of the game to a perennial basket case.
For all the joy of the historic treble in the first quarter of the year – Under-19 World Cup and men’s and women’s World Twenty20 titles – nothing summarises the steep decline of West Indies cricket over the past 20 years better than Anurag Thakur, president of the all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India, talking about supporting “teams like West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe” in his rejection last week of the proposed two-tier system for Test cricket.
Maybe Rousseau, Gordon, Aanensen, Deyal, Wilkin and Khan mean well by their statement. They cannot possibly expect us to believe, though, that the myriad problems with the administration of West Indies cricket, financial and otherwise, began with Dave Cameron.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.
