Brickbat for WICB

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have taken it as a done deal and already named their team.

Executive secretary of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Andrew Sealy, has confirmed it.

But several key officials yesterday claimed to be in the dark over plans to include an England 'A' team in next season's regional Busta Cup tournament.

I was aware that an England `A' team was scheduled to tour the Caribbean next year but the first I knew they would be in the Busta Cup was when I saw their team announced on the Internet, Lennox John, president of the Windward Islands Cricket Board and a WICB director, said from his office in Kingstown.

Both John and Owen Estwick, one of the two Barbados directors, revealed that they had not yet received an agenda for a WICB meeting in Antigua this weekend at which the inclusion of England 'A', as well as a combined West Indies Under-19 team, in the 2000 Busta Cup is expected to be ratified.

Both were surprised to hear reports that the meeting would also approve the appointment of a new chief executive officer to succeed Stephen Camacho who retired on May 30 after 18 years in office.

I really don't know what I'm going up there to discuss, John said. It just seems that we're out of the loop as far as decisions are concerned.

These statements were mirrored by Phillip Nicholls, secretary of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), David Holford, the BCA's first vice-president and also chief executive of the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA), and Bryan Davis, a member of the seemingly now defunct cricket committee of the WICB.

Alloy Lequay, president and chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control, declined comment until he heard from Richard deSouza and Ellis Lewis, the two Trinidad and Tobago members of the WICB's executive committee that reportedly ratified the addition of England 'A' and the Under-19s to the Busta Cup at a meeting in Jamaica last weekend.

The executive committee is headed by WICB president Pat Rousseau and includes deSouza, Lewis, Guyana Cricket Board president Chetram Singh and BCA president Stephen Alleyne. Alleyne was out of the region and did not attend last weekend's meeting.

All I can say about the concept is that they are applying solutions without understanding what the problems are, Lequay said.

BCA secretary Nicholls said he had received no notification on the matter and expected none.

President Alleyne and Estwick are Barbados' directors on the WICB.

It is simply another instance that shows that the territories no longer have any say in West Indies cricket, he observed.

Holford and Davis, two former West Indies Test players, were on the WICB cricket committee but revealed yesterday the committee had not met since the WICB's annual general meeting in Georgetown in May.

If, as anticipated, this weekend's Antigua meeting rubber-stamps the England 'A' participation, it will have to sort out the potentially delicate issue of whether they will be allowed to contest the Busta Cup.

The tournament originated in 1966 as the West Indies' first-class championship, first as the Shell Shield and then the Red Stripe Cup, before changing sponsors again two years ago. The entry of an overseas team would raise the possibility of a West Indies season without a West Indian champion.

A solution would be to have a tournament within a tournament.

Under this system, only matches between the six traditional territories would count for the Busta Cup with results of all matches determining the overall championsfor another trophy, by whatever name.