Letter to Sports Editor …From GCB to WICB to ICC – the Triumvirate of administrative failure

Dec 15, 2015 Sports

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Dear Sports Editor,
In a December 5th Trinidad Newsday article “Territorial Boards need changing” former WIPA President Dinanath Ramnarine made a very poignant statement that should resonate strongly with those in the Guyana cricket fraternity.
Speaking on the CARICOM sub-committee of Cricket Governance report Ramnarine said, ‘I’m not dealing with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) which is a shell because it is made up of the six territorial boards. The territorial boards must be examined.’
“Take for example the issue with Guyana, they haven’t had a democratic election for the last five years or so, but yet they’re allowed to determine who the president is of the WICB.”
Considering that Ramnarine famously took the WICB to court and won all the cases for WIPA, members of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) should be quite nervous that he has them in his sights.
Since the fiasco of the India tour pull out, under the leadership of Dave Cameron the WICB is in tatters, leading for CARICOM’s called for the WICB to be disbanded and a interim committee take over.
As Ramnarine noted because WICB is a shell of the boards like the GCB, these governance problems can be traced back to 2012 when the PPP government tried to implement a IMC to take over Guyana cricket. This is not a coincidence, it reinforces the point of if domestic board problems are not fixed – their cancers will filter into how the WICB operates.
The cancer goes further up to ICC level also. Tim Wigmore, 2015 English Cricket Board young Journalist of the year award winner, writing on December 7th in the UK Guardian article, “Both the WICB & ICC are to blame for West Indies decline” said, “Two weeks ago, Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president and new ICC chairman, criticised “the three major countries bullying the ICC”. His words were a reminder that, for all the self-inflicted element to the West Indies’ decline, the ICC’s iniquitous running of world cricket today has accelerated their descent.”
ICC has long been noted as the worse governing body in world sports and even though FIFA corruption issues are being well exposed currently, when it comes to proper administration of a sport they are light years ahead of ICC. How the ICC & FIFA have dealt with the Guyana cricket and football controversies in the past four years is plain for everyone to see.
In the last two years FIFA has overseen two democratic GFF elections, while implementing a Normalization committee to tackle almost identical issues in the GFF & GCB.
The ICC never sent a representative to Guyana, placing full responsibility on the anarchic WICB – while FIFA and CONCACAF sent representatives to deal with the GFF.
Recently Dave Cameron visited Guyana in July for a town-hall meeting, he dodged questions from critics regarding WICBs handling of the GCB situation like a batsman facing a bouncer from the great Windies pace attack of the 70s and 80s. It has become quite obvious overtime that Cameron never have had any intention of solving the Guyana cricket issues – simply because GCB voted for him in both WICB elections.
Majority is at the end of their tether with the Cameron/WICB and many feel that like former USSR and Yugoslavia football teams, the West Indies institution should break up. The general hope is that CARICOM is ready to flex its muscle and read WICB the riot act and forcefully by disbanding them – despite their predictable procrastination response at the Directors meeting in St. Lucia over the weekend.
ICC unlike FIFA never has had a clear policy about government roles in sport because currently Sri Lanka has another interim committee running its affairs. Call their bluff if they try to ban West Indies.
President David Granger, Minister Rupert Roopnarine and Director of Sport Christopher Jones need to be on the ball regarding these developments. Do not be fooled by Guyana’s current on-field success in the regional first-class competition, because the standard of domestic cricket is poor and the Jaguars are just repeating what Jamaica did a few years ago by being the best among a average bunch.
Guyana is not suddenly producing a trailer of load of West Indies ready talent – Rajendra Chandrika scoring 3 ducks in his first four test innings shows this.
Cricket remains the only sport where young Guyanese have a guaranteed option of making money as an elite athlete – it is imperative that at this stage the government re-opens investigations over the DCB situation so that a fairly elected body is constituted to represent Demerara, review the cricket administration bill and make sure in the upcoming GCB elections – Berbice votes.
It would be ludicrous if these aforementioned problems are repeated for a third election. If it does Guyana should not be allowed to vote in next WICB election nor host games in the next years’ tri-series against Australia and South Africa. It is time perpetrators of maladministration at the GCB and WICB be kicked out once and for all!
Colin Benjamin

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