Tony Becca
THE PLAN to restructure the West Indies Cricket Board to include four additional directors is a good one and, hopefully, the territorial boards, whose decision it is and always must be, will agree to it.
West Indies cricket is suffering among the reasons why it is suffering are the lack of quality leadership, the absence of influential people on the board and the insularity that runs through the board.
NEEDS EVERYONE'S HELP
While those in cricket, those who keep the game going in the respective territories must always have a say in what happens in West Indies cricket, it needs the help of West Indians who, even if they probably never played the game beyond the backyard, possess a love for the game and the ability to lead, to make decisions and to get things done.
Once upon a time, West Indies cricket was blessed with many men of such qualities.
Businessmen and professionals who had a passion for the game, and who devoted some of their time to the development of the game in their respective territories and thus throughout the region.
Sadly, however, that, generally, is not so today. Today, probably because of a changing world in which the accumulation of wealth is the order of the day, the successful people, the people of influence in the society, have drifted away from the game.
In their place are mostly people with little or no influence in the society, people who are so narrow and so insular that their every move, or almost every move, is aimed at satisfying their own constituency and that has not been and cannot be good for West Indies cricket.
Unfortunately, and remembering how people are elected to office in West Indies cricket, such is the state of things around the region that barring a move as planned by the board, things will never change.
The clubs, the heartbeat of the game, it should be noted, select their officers from their members, representatives of their officers, then vote for the officers of the territorial boards.
The representatives of territorial boards then select or vote for their two members to the West Indies board, and, although the president and vice-president of the board can be anyone from anywhere, it stands to reason that the 12 members of the West Indies board will reflect the membership of the clubs.
The membership of the clubs, however, is not what it used to be and it is getting worse and worse every day.
If the plan to restructure the board is, therefore, geared towards bringing in people who can assist the board in its fund-raising efforts, that is good. If it is geared towards bringing in people with the ability to plan and to make decisions, that is great. And, if it is also geared towards bringing in people who are not insular, but who are willing to work in the interest of West Indies cricket, that is wonderful.
RESTRUCTURING PLAN
The restructuring plan also calls for a cricket committee which, according to president Ken Gordon, "would play a dominant role in influencing cricket decisions".
The question about that part of the plan, however, is this: What happened to the previous cricket committee?
The answer is that it died a natural death - and all because of insularity. The last meeting of the cricket committee, once chaired by Jackie Hendriks, once chaired by Michael Findlay and consisting of a few members, was held almost two years ago. This, after the board, in a weak response to cries of favouritism from around the islands, had ruled that every territory should be represented on the committee, and after it had also ruled that the chairman of the committee must be a board member and had appointed David Holford to the chair.
The whispers are that the four additional directors will be Clive Lloyd, Allen Stanford, Dr. Grenville Phillips and Sir Allister McIntyre. It appears Lloyd will be the chairman of the cricket committee and, if that is true, if Lloyd does not have to travel from England to the West Indies so often that it becomes a financial burden on the board, then West Indies cricket is heading in the right direction.
