STANFORD
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):
TOP CRICKET journalist Tony Cozier believes restructuring the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and its operations is critical to the governing body's bid to lift the region's cricket out of the doldrums.
Following the WICB's directors' meeting two weekends ago in Port of Spain that decided on several issues to address current predicaments in West Indies cricket, Cozier declared that the board has made a start by at least recognising the urgency of the situation.
"Not a week, indeed not a day, passes without more evidence, damning and irrefutable, that only its immediate restructuring along with other urgent measures can save West Indies cricket from complete and utter ruination," Cozier wrote in his weekly column 'Cozier on Cricket' in the Sunday Sun newspaper.
The media release at the end of Directors' meeting, Cozier said, made "encouraging reading".
PLANNED ACTION
The release revealed planned action on the most crucial issues - the restructuring of the board, settlement of retainer contracts for the leading players, establishment of the comprehensive development plan prepared by head coach Bennett King and team operations manager Tony Howard for every level throughout the region and the need to achieve a break-even position at the end of 2006.
Cozier embraced measures being considered to widen the directorship of the board beyond territorial representatives, a structure - he believes - that has not benefited the regional focus.
"More and more, it is clear that its composition fuels insularity as members placed on its directorate by their individual boards see it as their duty to serve their board's narrow interests first, the West Indies second."
Cozier welcomes the move to add four directors, to be chosen from outside the narrow confines of the affiliated associations which presently constitute the board by providing two members each to sit under the president and vice-president.
He said the current arrangement "excludes the countless specialists with experience and expertise in critical areas", who should be available to West Indies cricket but who, for one good reason or another, do not seek office on the territorial boards.
"In his thoughtful, well-balanced article that appeared in some Caribbean newspapers and websites at the same time as the WICB meeting, former captain Clive Lloyd also saw the need for a wider spread of the net.
NON-VOTING REPRESENTATIVE
"His suggestions approximated to those mooted in Port-of-Spain. He envisaged a non-voting representative of CARICOM on the board, a relationship with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and a link with Allen Stanford, the Antigua-based Texan tycoon who has engaged Lloyd and 13 other greats of the West Indies' game on his board to administer his US$28 million Twenty20 tournament.
"These are the kinds of individuals likely to fill the four new posts on the board, once the change is approved by the territorial boards. Already Stanford has agreed to place his tournament under the WICB's aegis and closer cooperation can be anticipated."
But Cozier also suggested that constitutional change must also be implemented to scale down the numbers of the directorship, inevitably reducing the allocation from each territorial board.
"It is clear that the increase in directors, from 14 to 18, would create a top-heavy board. The corollary would be to streamline it by limiting the territories to a solitary representative each, either the president or his appointee, reducing the numbers to 12," Cozier said.
