Tony Becca
JACKIE HENDRIKS is the president of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) and chances are he will remain so until at least the association's annual general meeting scheduled for July. In fact, it is a good bet, a safe one at that, that he will remain president until he decides to say farewell.
But for Jeffrey Dujon, however, the former Wolmer's, Kingston Club, Jamaica and West Indies wicketkeeper/batsman, may well, by now and because of a conflict over the selection of the new coach
of the national team, have been numbered among the association's former presidents.
Following the resignation of Robert Haynes as the coach of the national team, the board of the JCA set up a committee to recommend someone to fill the position. Last weekend, before the committee had tabled its recommendation, word got out that the committee would be recommending Junior Bennett. However, president Hendriks wanted Dujon, he asked the committee to recommend Dujon, and with the committee insisting that Dujon, the national coaching director, was not the man for the job,
a conflict developed between him and members of the committee a conflict that led to the president calling some of the directors of the board on the telephone and asking for their support.
Although some members of the board agreed to support Hendriks, according to others, his approach to the conflict was unethical, it infuriated them, they were angry, they voiced their opinion and an emergency meeting to discuss the issue was called for Wednesday afternoon at Sabina Park by first vice-president Paul Campbell.
DUJON RESIGNED
On Monday morning, however, Dujon tendered his resignation as national coaching director to cricket operations officer Brian Breese and the meeting was cancelled between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
According to one member of the board, everything was back to normal, and the selection of the new coach will be addressed at the board's next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 21.
It would be strange, however, if everything is back to normal and for one simple reason.
With some board members, most of them it appears, supporting Bennett over Dujon and believing that Hendriks' approach was wrong and unethical, a number of them had said, before it was cancelled, that they were going to the emergency meeting, not to discuss who the new coach should be, but simply to chastise the president and to get an apology from him, failing which they would have called for a vote of no confidence against him and removed him.
It is said that all is well that ends well, but although Dujon, knowingly or unknowingly, probably rescued the president by his letter of resignation, although Hendriks is still the president of the JCA, in this case that may not be so.
NO LOVE LOST
Apart from the black eye that cricket is left with following the conflict over the selection of a coach; apart from the loss of Dujon as the national coaching director, and apart from the fact that Dujon may now be lost to Jamaica's cricket, the events of last weekend through to Wednesday show that there is no love lost between the president and some members of the board. Also, that there are a number of board members who would love to see him go, who are prepared to help him on his way and that, certainly not now and not over the selection of a coach, cannot be good for the game.
Unity is strength, but following what has happened and what probably may have happened at the emergency meeting had it taken place, there seems to be little unity among those who lead Jamaica's cricket to the extent that it may take some time before things are back to normal, before there is a good working relationship between the president and his board members.
