CARICOM resolute in endeavor to dissolve WICB

The CARICOM has reaffirmed its resolve to dissolve the West Indies Cricket Board and said it would soon create another prime ministerial sub-committee that would have wider say on cricket in the Caribbean. A CARICOM cricket review panel had made the recommendation to dissolve the WICB in November 2015, in a report that termed the board's governance structure as "antiquated", "obsolete" and "anachronistic".

"We will do everything possible to effect the decision," Grenada prime minister Keith Mitchell told the Jamaica Gleaner at the end of the CARICOM Heads of Government conference, which concluded on July 6 in Guyana. "We're looking at legal options on the basis that cricket is a public good run by a private institution."

The regional body also discounted the remarks of Gaston Browne, the Antigua and Barbuda prime minister, who had categorically rejected the idea of dissolving the WICB.

Mitchell, who is the outgoing head of the CARICOM sub-committee on cricket that had backed the panel's findings last year, said the opposition to WICB's current governance structure was not his alone, but a collective one and, hence, Browne's opposition did not carry much weightage.

"[It is a] common position of the Heads, not individual positions, and we cannot operate on the basis of individual positions, it's about the Heads," Mitchell was quoted as having said by CMC. "When I expressed my sentiments on cricket, it was about what the Heads said - the committee that we established jointly with the West Indies Cricket Board - and we agreed between the subcommittee and the West Indies Cricket Board to implement the recommendations.

"So it was not a Keith Mitchell decision, it was not a Keith Mitchell activity, it was a committee set up by the West Indies Cricket Board and the Heads of Government."

The CARICOM cricket review panel was appointed by the Prime Ministerial Committee on the Governance of West Indies Cricket in the wake of the crisis that engulfed the board after the BCCI suspended bilateral ties and slapped $41.97 million as damages following West Indies' decision to pull out midway through their India tour in 2014. Set up to review the governance and administrative structure of the WICB, the five-member panel, comprising V. Eudine Barriteau, Sir Dennis Byron, Dwain Gill, Deryck Murray and Warren Smith submitted a damning report.

Apart from its comments on the current set-up, the panel strongly recommended the establishment of an interim board in place of the WICB. However, Dave Cameron, the WICB president, rejected the panel's findings, saying they were not supported by facts.

The WICB received further support from Browne, who broke ranks with CARICOM. Browne continued to remain defiant even this week. "That (recommendation to dissolve) is a recipe for chaos and confusion and we are totally opposed to any forced dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board," Browne told the Gleaner.

Regardless, the CARICOM heads have refused to give up their stance on WICB. According to Roosevelt Skerrit, the Dominica prime minister and chairman of CARICOM, an additional sub-committee on cricket with a much wider scope will be appointed soon. "There were two before; one on governance issues and one of the larger issues confronting cricket…this is a new committee on cricket mandated to examine all matters relating to the development of cricket, which is a very wide area of concentration."