Is cricket’s problem now solved, Dr Mitchell?
KEITH MITCHELL, the prime minister of Grenada, is happy with what he says is an “attitudinal change” in the leadership of West Indies cricket under Ricky Skerritt, away from the arrogance of the sport’s former boss, Jamaican Dave Cameron, with whom regional leaders were often at odds.
That is understandable. What, though, is not clear is whether Dr Mitchell’s embrace of Mr Skerritt’s “tone”, and the potential he sees in it for the transformation of the game in the region, represents a sublimation of principle in favour of personality.
In other words, Dr Mitchell ought to declare if he remains in favour of a dramatic overhaul of the management of the sport, including the disbanding of the governing body, Cricket West Indies. For that matter, regional governments, more broadly, should say where they now stand on the matter.
To be clear, this newspaper, like Dr Mitchell and cricket lovers across the Caribbean, have been pained by the decline, over the last quarter-century, of the region’s team in a game it dominated during the previous two decades. For, to us, cricket is more than mere sport. It was, in a sense, a reference point; a metaphor, of sorts, for the Caribbean’s collective achievements.
Further, we, too, were disturbed by Mr Cameron’s crude and gritty approach to management that perennially engaged him in conflicts with players, coaches, and regional leaders over issues ranging from compensation to the direction and organisation of the sport in the Caribbean. But worse for us was Mr Cameron’s dislocation from the cosmology of West Indies cricket. He appeared to embrace neither its history nor sociology, but saw, primarily, a potentially marketable commodity from which financial benefits could flow. It is this solely laissez-faire construct that saw him concede authority of the sports global management to its new great powers, with the West Indies at the periphery.
In that context, this newspaper shed no tears for Dave Cameron when, last March, he lost the presidency of Cricket West Indies (CWI) to the Kittian, Mr Skerritt. We, however, were wary of calls for fundamentally new management arrangements for West Indian cricket, fearful that it would be an opportunity for Caribbean governments to expropriate, and politicise, the sport.
There was no such concern on Dr Mitchell’s part. He was chairman of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) subcommittee on cricket when that organisation, in 2015, appointed a committee, chaired by Professor Eudine Barriteau, to conduct a review of the governance of cricket in the region, taking into account the work of similar panels over the previous decade.
MORE THAN LEADERSHIP CHANGE
The committee’s most striking, and fundamental, recommendation in its October 2015 report was for “the immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board and the appointment of an interim board, whose structure and composition will be radically different from the now-proven, obsolete governance framework”.
Management consultants would be engaged to fashion the specifics of the new structure, drawing heavily on a framework outlined eight years earlier by a task force headed by the former Jamaican prime minister, PJ Patterson, which this newspaper had found to be unnecessarily cumbersome.
Unlike one, or two, of his regional colleagues, Dr Mitchell appeared to be in full concert with the Barriteau Report. Indeed, in the lead-up to the CWI’s presidential election, when Mr Cameron appeared safe in the job, he insisted that the issue was about more than a change of leadership.
“The chop and change of presidents, in my view, is not going to solve the problems that are plaguing West Indies cricket,” Dr Mitchell said. “The attitude and structure that we have in place and the transparency and accountability have to be a fundamental issue, also.”
So, the attitudinal problem, from Dr Mitchell’s vantage point, is solved. Does the Barriteau Report, with its conclusion that the “governance system of West Indian cricket has outlived its capacity to effectively deliver the game and manage the business of cricket” remain relevant?
In this regard, it would be useful to remind Dr Mitchell of another of Professor Barriteau’s observations: “Historically, and for too long, challenges with the management and governance of West Indies cricket have been approached as an issue primarily of the quality of the leadership.”