IT was inevitable that the high expectations for the latest review of the management of West Indies cricket would quickly turn into the turmoil that has typified its sharp decline of the past two decades.
The conviction of Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, head of Caricom’s sub-committee on cricket, that no objections would be raised by West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Dave Cameron to the conclusions of the independent panel, chaired by principal of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill campus, Dr.Eudene Barriteau, appeared reasonable enough in the circumstances.
It was, after all, jointly established by the two at a meeting last April; the WICB appointed three of its five members. Mitchell was adamant that Cameron gave the assurance than that the WICB would accept all its points.
In reality, such confidence was misplaced.
Mitchell and St. Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Ralph Gonsalves, also a member of the Caricom sub-committee, had experience of the contrast between what is agreed to behind closed doors and what subsequently eventuates.
When Dwayne Bravo and Keiron Pollard were dropped after the contentious withdrawal of the team from the tour of India in October 2014 for the subsequent ODIs in South Africa, Gonsalves accused Cameron of reneging on his ‘solemn undertaking’ at a joint meeting in Port-of-Spain that there would be ‘no victimisation or discrimination’ against the
