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Hunte to apologise to PM over offensive remarks
Jamaica Observer – President of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Julian Hunte 
plans to visit Kingston shortly to apologise to Jamaican Prime Minister Protia Simpson Miller for “inappropriate” remarks made last week by the WICB secretariat, a reliable cricket source has said.
However, a check with the office of the prime minister early Monday said Simpson Miller was yet to be contacted by the WICB regarding any such visit by Hunte. The source who spoke to the Observer on condition of anonymity said the decision was taken at a two-day meeting of WICB directors in St Lucia on the weekend.
The Jamaica Cricket Association and Simpson Miller responded furiously to comments from the WICB secretariat which substantially said the Jamaican Prime Minister had spoken from a position of ignorance when she addressed issues involving regional cricket at a Jamaica Cricket Association Awards Dinner last weekend.
Simpson Miller had weighed in on the controversial non-inclusion of former West Indies captain, Jamaican Chris Gayle in the West Indies team since early 2011 as well as the non-inclusion of Jamaica as a venue for the upcoming Australia tour of the Caribbean.
Regarding Chris Gayle issue, Simpson Miller is reported to have said: “I am very disturbed by how long this matter has gone on without a resolution. There has been no trial and no hearing; and as we know from the popular maxim – justice delayed is justice denied. It is not just to have one of the world’s leading cricketers being excluded from test cricket. This matter demands an amicable resolution as quickly as possible…”
However, the WICB said the Jamaican prime minister had not been properly “briefed” by its member association the JCA.
In specific reference to Gayle, of whom the WICB secretariat is demanding an apology for comments made about West Indies coach Otis Gibson and the WICB last year, the regional cricket authority drew the ire of the JCA and Simpson Miller by likening the situation to an imagined crisis involving a prime minister and Cabinet.
“The WICB does not believe that the Prime Minister is suggesting that Mr Gayle be returned to the West Indies team without withdrawing his comments. This would be tantamount to a member of the Jamaican cabinet lambasting and deriding the leader of the cabinet and fellow cabinet colleagues and being returned to that august body without any accountability for his or her actions,” the statement from the WICB said in part.
The JCA which has previously being accused of not doing enough to resolve the issue involving Gayle promptly voiced its “complete rejection and condemnation” of the eight-paragraph statement from the WICB. The JCA called on Hunte to “retract the unfounded and unwarranted attack against the Honourable Prime Minister of Jamaica and to move immediately to resolve the Chris Gayle impasse, as we believe he has been more than reasonably punished”.
At a press conference last week Simpson Miller accused the WICB of being “rude” and “crude” and promised to raise the issue at the level of CARICOM.
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