CARICOM moving ahead to restructure West Indies cricket

CARICOM moving ahead to restructure West Indies cricket
Associated Press / Andres Leighton

CARICOM is moving ahead with plans to ensure the restructuring of the governance of West Indies cricket, despite the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) request to have Cricket West Indies (CWI) president Dave Cameron at any meeting between the two bodies.

But chairman of CARICOM’s cricket sub-committee, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, said the proposed meeting with the ICC was intended to be an open discussion and he expected that CWI would have a presence.

The ICC, cricket’s world governing body, recently told CARICOM it was prepared to meet with the regional body but would only do so with the presence of Cameron, adding that “Cricket West Indies (CWI) is our member.”

The ICC told Dr. Gonsalves that the meeting could not take place on the sidelines of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in London later this month because of a scheduling conflict.

However, Gonsalves said the rescheduling of the ICC would not prevent CARICOM from continuing to lay the groundwork for the implementation of a new governance structure.

He said it is CARICOM’s re-stated position that “good governance and transparency” remained paramount.

The St. Vincent and Grenadines prime minister said that CARICOM is not going to get involved in the management of West Indies cricket, it’s a public good and it can’t just be managed by a private entity.

CWI has resisted any overhaul of its governance ever since the 2015 CARICOM-commissioned Governance report called for the “immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board (now CWI) and the appointment of an interim board.”

Cameron has since argued that CWI leadership must be “free of interference from governments.”