Hall out front

Wes Hall emerged last night as the front-runner to be new president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

He was expected to be nominated as a candidate for the July 21 election at a Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) board of management meeting last night.

Hall, 63, has been in the game all his life as a Test player and fiery fast bowler of the 1960s and later successful team manager and selector.

A former Cabinet minister in the Barbados Government and now an ordained Christian pastor, he has been guarded as to whether or not he would accept a nomination. He has been quoted as saying that, like in anything he does, he would have to pray about it.

BCA president Stephen Alleyne said yesterday he hoped there could be consensus among the six territorial boards which comprise the WICB over who should replace president Pat Rousseau and vice-president Clarvis Joseph. They resigned last weekend when the directors overturned their decision to sack team manager Ricky Skerritt.

It is important that the board is unified, and seen to be unified, at this stage, Alleyne said.

Hall contested the vice-presidency at last year's WICB annual general meeting in Georgetown but withdrew when Alloy Lequay, long-serving head of the Trinidad and Tobago board, lost his challenge to Rousseau.

If Hall does eventually gain the post, the presidency would revert to a former Test cricketer for the first time in seven years.Until Rousseau's predecessor, Barbadian Peter Short, a business executive, took over in 1994, the WICB was headed successively by former West Indies players Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Alan Rae and Sir Clyde Walcott.

Alleyne would have been a strong candidate himself. But he emphasised that working responsibilities precluded him from seeking the post.

I have been asked, and am very flattered to have been asked, but that is not a post that I can contemplate at this time at all, he said.

Alleyne, an insurance executive and one of the Barbados directors on the WICB, was assured of strong support if he did contest the presidency.

Lequay had already named him as his choice as the best man for the post. But Alleyne said his own working responsibilities were just incompatible with the responsibilities demanded of the WICB president.

It requires careful relationship-building and getting our cricket back on track and I think it will take up a significant portion of the successful individual's time, he added.

Alleyne is chief executive of the Life of Barbados insurance company and is also a member of the National Insurance Board.

It just would not be fair to those responsibilities to add to that the very significant load of the West Indies Cricket Board (presidency), he said.

Although he will not run for the presidency, Alleyne is part of the executive committee chosen by the directors at a meeting at the Savannah Hotel on Tuesday night to make decisions, as required, prior to the July 21 meeting.

The committee originally comprised the president, vice-president and three directors Alleyne, Richard deSouza of Trinidad and Tobago and Chetram Singh of Guyana.

WICB executive secretary Andrew Sealy said chief executive Gregory Shillingford and finance officer Richard Jodhan were chosen to replace Rousseau and Joseph on the new committee.

Alleyne and Singh were selected at Tuesday night's meeting to represent the WICB at the annual general meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in London later this month. It will be the first time for both.