ST JOHN'S-For­mer West In­sides cap­tain and bat­ting leg­end, Sir Vi­vian Richards, has urged the new­ly ap­point­ed Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of West In­dies Crick­et Board, Michael Muir­head of Ja­maica, to learn quick­ly from the mis­takes of his pre­de­ces­sors.

Speak­ing to OB­SERV­ER Sports yes­ter­day, Sir Viv, who was vot­ed one of five Crick­eters of the Cen­tu­ry in 2000 by a 100-mem­ber pan­el of ex­perts, warned the in­com­ing CEO that his mode of op­er­a­tion must not mir­ror the "con­fronta­tion­al" at­ti­tudes of those be­fore him. "Not to just ba­si­cal­ly be on the job he has been giv­en to be in the back­ground as CEO and to take West In­dies to the next lev­el ad­min­is­tra­tive-wise and to stay far from the sort of con­fronta­tion­al fac­tors with play­ers and the per­son­al­i­ties we would have seen ear­li­er from who would have been in that po­si­tion," Sir Viv said.

"Some­times it's that con­fronta­tion­al fac­tor which leads to maybe some of the con­fronta­tions we would have seen in the past so I hope that he un­der­stands that and he would have learnt from some of the mis­takes made. "Maybe the ar­ro­gance that some­times could be dis­played and the re­spect for play­ers, I hope that we see some light where this is con­cerned and that every­one, rather than the con­fronta­tion­al side of things, that every­one can work col­lec­tive­ly well to­geth­er," he added.

Muir­head will re­place Dr Ernest Hi­laire who steps down on Sep­tem­ber 30 af­ter com­plet­ing a three-year term as WICB CEO. Ac­cord­ing to Sir Viv, how­ev­er, change at the top is al­ways a wel­comed start to re­vamp­ing any ail­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion. "I have al­ways felt that change is good and es­pe­cial­ly with some of the run-ins they would have had, no­tably with the play­ers' as­so­ci­a­tion and things like that you would need that you have some­one who can steer the ship and in lead­er­ship po­si­tion. I think that it does help in terms of what hap­pens on the field and I hope he can do that," he said.

Muir­head, 55, served as Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Tourism Prod­uct De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Ja­maica from 2004 to 2006, and since then has been en­gaged as a man­age­ment con­sul­tant with sev­er­al high-lev­el projects in the coun­try. He was al­so with Price Wa­ter­house and served in se­nior man­age­ment po­si­tions at the Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank of Ja­maica.