by EZRA STUART

TODAY, I'm acting as chairman of the Barbados cricket selection panel and national senior team manager.

I will wear both hats proudly as despite what some detractors may say, there is absolutely no conflict of interest in my roles.

Even though things were brown in my first stint as chairman, I still have the full support of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA). Whether the national team lose a record number of matches in one season while playing 24 players; four captains are appointed in one season and our cricket sinks to its lowest ebb, neither me nor the head coach will be sacked.

The responsibility for team success rests solely with the players. That's why I replaced my former club manager Livy Coppin as I want to see first-hand and wield the axe on any player, whether he is on the West Indies team or not, who has no pride in representing his country.

Young cricketers must earn their places on the team, so even if they score 1 000 runs, have over 50 wickets in Division 1 cricket, those things don't guarantee selection. It is current form that I will pick certain players on.

I will also stop playing Division 1 cricket against the same players I am expected to select to play for Barbados and give up the captaincy of my team, especially since I ran out of luck last Sunday in the Sagicor Super Cup Final.

Now, I would be free to go around and lime at other grounds and watch players at my whim and fancy instead of having to wait until they play against my side.

I would also tell my fellow selectors to follow my lead, so that we can watch more cricket on Saturdays because I remember cricketers from my era lamenting that some of the past selectors used to watch horse racing and not cricket on Saturdays.

Barbados' cricket, like the West Indies, is too precious a commodity to be short-changed.

You may wonder why the selectors may now have to pick the Barbados team based only on net practice and training sessions, supervised by two deputies with the head coach vacationing, even though it was known since May when the fixtures came out that the Division 1 season would end on December 20.

But, in the absence of director of coaching/assistant West Indies coach, Henderson Springer, I've worked out the logistics of staging trial matches to test players in a real-match pressure situation in preparation for the 2010 regional first-class season.

Hence, my proposal is for the first three-day trial from December 8 to 10; the second from December 15 to 17 and after the Christmas holidays, a final four-day trial from December 27 to 30.

After that, those junior and senior cricketers, who are so dominant in our domestic competitions but just can't make the grade on the regional or international stage, will get a tongue-lashing.

It may not be my call but I feel that agreement last January between the BCA and Government where the BCA is in charge of "The Mecca" only during regional and international matches, is not good for cricket.

So I will urge the Ministry of Sports, under whose auspices Kensington Oval Management Inc. (KOMI) falls, that with immediate effect there will be no more events, cultural or otherwise, at "The Mecca" where it requires the outfield and pitches to be covered, whether it is for a week, a day or an hour.

I just don't want that big bloke Andy Atkinson from the International Cricket Council (ICC), who inspects and assesses venues and oversees preparation of pitches, no-balling our "Mecca" about the sudden and significant deterioration of its surface.

Can you imagine the loss of revenue for hoteliers, taxi-drivers, bar owners and all those who depend on visitors, especially English fans, if all those matches, including the grand final of the Twenty20 World Championships on May 16, are not held in Barbados?

As a calypso fan, while I've enjoyed the Pic-Of-De-Crop finals or Cohobblopot at The Oval for the last two years, the damage done to the "Mecca" is too costly.

The National Stadium is more appropriate for cultural events. But the stands need to be refurbished or redesigned with the addition of hospitality boxes at the back with the necessary amenities. This will allow dignitaries and sponsors to watch whatever events are staged there in comfort, instead of squeezing into the VIP Box in the Louis Lynch Stand where they have to seek shelter whenever it rains.

Install some elevators, but not like the malfunctioning ones at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital so that the "big ups" won't have to walk up or down the stairs.

Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo and Ronald Jones will also get a call from me. I will tell them to expedite the building of the promised stadium which was earmarked for football and some of the other sports, instead of waiting to piggy-back on the new University of the West Indies' artificial field down by the Lazaretto.

Like the West Indies cricketers, I didn't realise that my president Joel "Big Bird" Garner was in full flight again and had gone off to London on West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) business, and was unable to travel from the Caribbean with the players he is now managing in Australia.

So I'm forced to ask BCA vice-president Conde Riley, who resigned but like Chris Gayle, was reinstated, to tell his fellow WICB directors and the new WICB chief executive officer Ernest Hilaire, that it is unconscionable to withhold a retainer contract for Dale Richards, who was injured on the job, playing cricket for the West Indies.

ezrastuart@nationnews.com