The former Barbados selection committee has hurled a barrage of bouncers at the Barbados Cricket Association’s (BCA) board of management.
In the aftermath of the dramatic resignations of chairman George Linton and his colleagues Winston Reid and Mike Inniss, the trio has hit out at the BCA’s hierarchy, accusing the board of providing inadequate support.
The three former Barbados players also claimed the board failed to maintain promises, did not act on reports, never give reasons why successive recommendations for captains were not approved and sometimes failed to communicate effectively.
Linton, Reid, and Inniss, who were first appointed as selectors in September 2010, listed their grouses in a two-page statement provided exclusively to the WEEKEND NATION.
“It was with heavy hearts that we the Barbados selection panel submitted our resignations as we felt we had little support from the board,” they said.
“Even when Desmond Haynes was Barbados team manager we asked the board about seeing the manager’s report because we would have been interested in what happened on tour as it would provide us with more comprehensive information on which to base our selection. This was agreed to by the board but to date we have only seen one report.”
After a few days of twists and turns, Linton, Reid and Inniss tendered the resignations two weeks ago on the opening day of the fifth-round WICB Regional Four-Day match against Guyana.
It came after they were advised that they failed to follow due process in dropping former captain Ryan Hinds on disciplinary grounds and a few days after they were summoned to a meeting with two top BCA officials.
“We were told that we had breached the Code of Conduct which was in force since May 2011 by omitting a player for disciplinary reasons,” the selectors said. “It was the first time that we were given a copy of the Code of Conduct which we were supposed to have breached.”
The former selectors also documented the instances when their choices as captains did not meet favour – dating back to last October’s regional limited-overs competition when they submitted, in order of priority, the names of Dwayne Smith, Carlos Brathwaite and Marlon Graham.
“We subsequently learned that Kenroy Williams would have been captain even though he was not one of the three submitted,” they said.
“We were later asked to submit two names for the T20 captain. We recommended Dwayne Smith and Carlos Brathwaite but again, neither was chosen and instead
Kirk Edwards was made captain without any reason given.”
When contacted yesterday, BCA president Joel Garner said that given the length of the former selectors’ statement, the board would likely issue a more detailed response at a later stage, but he immediately touched on some of the concerns.
“Recommendations can be made but it doesn’t mean the board accepts every one of them. At the end of the day, we either accept or refuse and move on,” he said. “It is the board’s prerogative. The board thought in its wisdom that the recommendations were not what they wanted.”
Garner also explained why more reports were not made available to the selectors.
“Reports are guarded because they have a way of finding themselves in the public domain. People are very guarded with their reports because they end up in the newspaper,” he said.
“Sometimes managers are reluctant to write the reports because of leaks. Reports come in now and few people see them. You read the reports and reports are taken back after you read them.”
Linton, Reid and Inniss also claimed they brought to the board’s attention that there were concerns over the discipline of a couple players that were not dealt with; they were still to hear from the board about a selector travelling to Antigua for the Caribbean Twenty20, and they learnt through unofficial channels that a manager had been named for the four-day tournament on the day before the first match.”
