The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) confirmed at its annual general meeting in Jamaica last weekend that its name was to be changed to Cricket West Indies.
It was a retitling first promoted in the comprehensive Patterson Report on its governance and structure in 2007, prepared by a committee headed by the former Jamaica prime minister. Like other key points, it has remained dormant in the nine years since as, in the interim, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have made switches.
Patterson explained at the time that the new name would reflect the difference in the WICB’s governance structure as recommended by his panel. That ‘difference’ is yet to be realised in spite of the committee’s caveats that “change must be effected urgently” and that “the status quo is not an option.”
Under pressure from Caribbean governments (CARICOM) that have insisted on the implementation of the main item of its review committee, presented last November as the latest of four of its kind, the WICB tackled the subject of transformation at its Jamaica meeting.
It issued two statements afterwards that blurred the question as to whether or not it intends to follow the lead of Australia and New Zealand in meaningfully reorganising itself.
One came from the shareholder boards. The six – Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and Windward Islands – strongly supported the WICB’s earlier rejection of
