Dear Editor,
David Cameron, President of the West Indies Cricket Board, is reported as saying at a Town Hall meeting that the Board rejected the Patterson Report’s idea of a council to oversee West Indies cricket “because it would not have been an elected body.” Mr Cameron is reported as saying that the WICB is an elected body and could not countenance a council “that would sit on top of the West Indies Cricket Board.”
This extremely superficial dismissal of the fully developed case for changing the governing structure of West Indies cricket must not go unchallenged. What happened was that the WICB refused to contemplate any change in the decades-old status quo that has increasingly dragged West Indies cricket into the doldrums. It would not relinquish any part of the stranglehold which the territorial boards exercise over West Indies cricket. It would not even contemplate, for example, giving up one of two territorial seats each of them have on the WICB in order to expand representation and allow greater access to relevant skills.
The blatantly unreasonable set-up of the existing governance of West Indies cricket is almost beyond belief. Just take one (but important) example – the enormous investment in stadia and facilities by West Indian governments (taxpayers) goes completely unrepresented on the West Indies Cricket Board.
Surely it is time for the West Indian people as a whole to have a chance to see what the Patterson Report nearly eight years ago said about how West Indies cricket should be governed. In this regard, the board should make a special release for general information of the whole of Part 4 of the report which deals comprehensively with a new governance structure for West Indies cricket. This should enable a better informed debate to take place than would be the case if West Indians were to depend on Mr Cameron’s superficial and self-serving comments.
Mr Cameron is also reported as saying that 80% to 90% of the Patterson Report has been implemented.
The report was concerned primarily to recommend a changed and more representative structure for governing West Indies cricket. (The committee, after all, was named “The Governance Committee on West Indies Cricket.”) Rejecting the report’s core recommendation on governance is tantamount to rejecting the report. Apparently the operating manual was approved but somehow the tumour remains unremoved.
Mr Cameron really should not be allowed to get away with a few shallow words. Town Hall meetings cannot hold him to account. Eventually the people of the West Indies will.
Yours faithfully,
Ian McDonald
