Angry Lucky blasts West Indies board

Justice Anthony Lucky has blasted the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) for what he yesterday termed "an appalling response" to his three-member committee's report on how Digicel replaced Cable & Wireless as the new sponsor of West Indies cricket.

The WICB, now headed by Ken Gordon, former media mogul, of Trinidad and Tobago, in responding last Friday to positions adopted by the review committee, rejected some of the most significant conclusions of the committee's report.

Those include its disagreement that the Digicel contract was "legally flawed" and that C&W was "treated unfairly in negotiations".

Further, the board deplored in its statement what it described as "imputations against the integrity" of some of its top officials, among them Roger Brathwaite, chief executive officer, and Teddy Griffith, immediate past president.

However, Lucky, speaking in a telephone interview from Canada on his way to Europe on judicial duties, told the Trinidad Express he had discussed with Avondale Thomas and Gregory Georges, fellow committee members, the need for a joint statement to the WICB's response to their report.

While such a joint statement "is to be expected", said Lucky, he wished to make his own position clear at "this preliminary stage" in the interest of his "personal integrity, fairness to those interviewed, as well as my respect for public opinion".

He said it was "simply appalling, indeed outrageous, for the Board, including its new president (Ken Gordon), to have acted as judge and jury in its own cause..." Lucky said the WICB had appointed the three-member committee as an "independent" body to undertake the review of the circumstances that led to Digicel being awarded the contract as new sponsor of West Indies cricket.

Therefore, he added, it was "not for the WICB to insult public opinion" by playing judge and jury in defending itself against the findings and recommendations of the committee.

"By this shocking stand, and with critical documents, including the Digicel contract, still protected from public scrutiny," said Lucky, "the WICB is only doing more harm to itself by appearing to go after the review committee because it did not deliver what was apparently expected, a wishy-washy report..."

Lucky, who has a six-year relationship with the WICB, primarily with its disciplinary committee, and serving as of 2004 both as the committee's chairman and representative on the code of conduct committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC), further stated: "The findings of the sponsorship review committee are based on concrete evidence, including taped statements, and these can be made available, if necessary, to defend its (the committee's) integrity. Perhaps Mr Griffith and Mr Brathwaite and others should listen to some of the taped evidence."

Meanwhile, Gordon, the WICB president, is scheduled to have a requested meeting on Wednesday in Grenada with Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, chairman of CARICOM's Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on Cricket.

Mitchell yesterday confirmed his meeting with Gordon ahead of Friday's scheduled meeting of the Prime Ministerial Sub-committee, at which the ongoing disputes between the WICB and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA); the Lucky committee's report; and the recent resignation of business executive Rawle Brancker as chairman of Cricket World Cup 2007, are expected to be discussed.

Mitchell said yesterday he shares "the deep concern"of his CARICOM colleagues on the ongoing WICB/WIPA impasse, but preferred to hold all comments until after speaking with Gordon and following the conclusion of Friday's Prime Ministerial Sub-committee meeting.