There could be some casualties by the time the West Indies cricket dispute is resolved.
Who’s to say that some won’t be calling for the head of the president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Dave Cameron.
Notwithstanding that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, I’m among those who haven’t been impressed at all with the way Cameron, as head of his organisation, has dealt with the impasse.
For instance, when we examine the timeline the Indians put out after the tour was abandoned, we have to wonder what made it so difficult for Cameron to go from Dubai to India to see if he could meet with the players and Indian officials in an attempt to salvage the tour.
It’s not as if he had to fly thousands of miles from the Caribbean to get to India. He was just a stone’s throw away. His presence may not have solved the dispute but at least it would have come across that he was interested in doing so and that he showed some degree of respect for the Indians and the embarrassing position they were being placed in.
He might also have won support from the players if he was prepared to hear their side of the story in a face-to-face session.
We note that the president wasn’t even due to be part of the so-called pre-scheduled meeting set for October 20 in India to explain the contents of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to the players.
We might agree that leaders can delegate duties to subordinates but the CBA and the MOU was such a critical document agreed to by the WICB and WIPA that Cameron should’ve been part of that group who were to meet with the players in India.
This fact also made it incomprehensible why he didn’t take the opportunity to go to India from Dubai because he was the perfect man to listen to the imperfections the players raised about their contracts.
I think he also erred when he appeared to come down on the side of the West Indies Players Association and then offered to be a mediator in resolving those matters. Players’ spokesman Dwayne Bravo was right to question his sincerity in this respect.
Furthermore, we would have to ponder if there had been any direct contact with Cameron and the Indian authorities since the tour was abandoned.
This speculation would be justified because I don’t think the Indians would continue to make public threats against the WICB if there was communication on the issues.
Then there was the emergency meeting held in Barbados on October 22 and after the board issued a statement talking about reaching out to India and also setting up a task force to review the events that caused the tour to be abandoned.
As indicated earlier, it doesn’t seem as though there was any contact with the BCCI and before you could blink, the task force was dismantled and the WICB went ahead and met with the players and their legal representative and WIPA in Jamaica on October 26.
Seriously? Was this a board decision?
In it all, we are seeing a process that has been grossly mismanaged on the part of the WICB and its president can be held accountable. Who will call this shot ?
WIPA president Wavell Hinds is also in the firing line and under pressure.
The group represented by Bravo are adamant that they don’t want Hinds as head of WIPA acting on their behalf.
It stands to reason they reached this conclusion because they felt he didn’t negotiate the CBA and the MOU in their best interest and that they didn’t have a final input in the document before it was signed off on between the WICB and WIPA.
This is obvious in the fact that a prescheduled meeting was slated to explain it to the players.
They had no idea what was in the final document.
In essence, they felt overlooked by Hinds as head of WIPA and they have lost trust in him.
Will the players be bringing a resolution to remove him from his president/chief executive officer post?
On the other hand, will the WICB try to exact revenge on the players for the massive fall out with India?
Lest we forget, they offered to send a weakened team to save the tour and it was rejected by the hosts.
So, there was intent to replace the dissenting cricketers.
If the board gets its way, it may not be wrong to assume that a more sublime effort might be made to do it again with consequences for Bravo, Darren Sammy and Denesh Ramdin.
The common denominator for these three players is that they are the respective captains in the three forms of the game and they were all part of the stand off in India.
We note that their legal counsel Barbadian Ralph Thorne said after the Jamaica meeting he hoped the board won’t consider any recrimination against the players after there’s a settlement. Did he deduce from the tone of that gathering that there could be a witchhunt?
The rolling of heads in the Caribbean is hardly ever exercised even when there’s empirical evidence to support such an act should be taken.
I mean, has anyone paid the price for the Jeff Miller debacle with the Barbados Cricket Association?
• Andi Thornhill is an experienced, award-winning sports journalist.
