Scrap the board

© The Nation

The inaugural chairman of the World Cup organising committee , Rawle Brancker, launched a broadside at the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), telling a standing room-only audience that the board should be disbanded and dissolved.

The WICB, he said, was apparently suffering from "an unusually mountainous level of arrogance". He continued: "We bash the team, and with good cause, most of the time - but the team is clearly a reflection of the board."

He made the comments as he delivered the 13th annual Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture at the Errol Barrow Centre For Creative Imagination. The lecture was hosted by the CLR Cricket Research Centre of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.

Speaking on the topic: Is The Board, Given Its Present Structure, Relevant To West Indies Cricket?, Brancker asked rhetorically: "How can an employer such as the WICB expect to have success on or off the field of play, if it cannot settle fundamental matters with its employees (the players)?"

He said that over the past ten years there had been continuous conflict between the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and the WICB. He cited at least ten instances of such conflict. The latest, he added, was this week's stand-off that has developed between the two entities over the contract for next month's tour of England by the West Indies.

Brancker queried why matters such as conditionality of employment, decorum, pay, and in general, expectations, especially in areas of performance and discipline, were always contentious issues. He said such continuous conflict showed a board that appeared not to know what it was about.

Which other corporate entity you know whose shareholders would continuously permit and support such nonsense, where the main asset, the players, is being profoundly mismanaged?

Given the state of West Indies cricket and its likely future if the board continued in its present structure, he said the WICB needed scrapping and a more efficient entity put in its place. "Somewhat like our star batsman, it should disband or dissolve itself and let us look at a new approach," he said, adding the WICB was irrelevant to West Indies' future cricket development. "Which other corporate entity you know whose shareholders would continuously permit and support such nonsense, where the main asset, the players, is being profoundly mismanaged?" he asked.

Brancker, who resigned after two years as World Cup chairman, citing grave concerns about the direction in which preparations were taking, suggested however that the World Cup had possibly provided the opportunity for positive action.

Neither the Caribbean governments nor their constituents were direct share certificate-holding shareholders of the WICB, he said, but by virtue of the recent investment of millions in stadia and other infrastructural improvements across the region, Caribbean people now held a position where their governments, either through suasion or direct demand, could insist the people were now the de facto controlling shareholders.

With the WICB losses soaring, he added, the people could morally demand the closure or phasing out of an entity which was clearly not working and immediately proceed to establish a new pan-Caribbean entity, owned and financed by the real owners of West Indies cricket - the people.