ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Leg­endary fast bowler Sir Curt­ly Am­brose has laud­ed the Ricky Sker­ritt ad­min­is­tra­tion for im­me­di­ate­ly con­fronting and at­tempt­ing to fix the play­er is­sues fac­ing West In­dies crick­et.

Pri­or to Sker­ritt’s elec­tion as Crick­et West In­dies pres­i­dent a year ago, sev­er­al ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers re­mained at log­ger­heads with the Dave Cameron-led board and of­ten de­clined se­lec­tion while oth­ers opt­ed for re­tire­ment.

How­ev­er, with Sker­ritt im­me­di­ate­ly over­haul­ing the se­lec­tion process and an­nounc­ing his in­ten­tion to use a play­er-cen­tred ap­proach to gov­er­nance, the Caribbean side has seen the re­turn of play­ers like Kieron Pol­lard, Dwayne Bra­vo and Lendl Sim­mons.

“Crick­et West In­dies be­fore Ricky Sker­ritt’s tenure has had ma­jor is­sues with play­ers and the board, and a lot of play­ers just didn’t want to rep­re­sent the West In­dies be­cause of is­sues,” Sir Curt­ly said here.

“What I like about his (Sker­ritt) thing is that he brought all the play­ers back in, mean­ing that every­one can be avail­able for se­lec­tion so we can try and find the strongest West In­dies teams and that, to me, is a good thing.”

Sim­mons was re­called af­ter 2-½ years in the wilder­ness while Bra­vo end­ed his re­tire­ment and ear­li­er this year made his first ap­pear­ance in near­ly four years for the Caribbean side.

Pol­lard, whose ap­pear­ances had al­so been in­fre­quent, was ap­point­ed cap­tain of the white-ball sides last Sep­tem­ber, de­spite hav­ing not played a sin­gle One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al in three years.

Sir Curt­ly, a for­mer West In­dies bowl­ing coach, said Pol­lard’s ap­point­ment had been a pro­gres­sive move by se­lec­tors.

“I like the idea of bring­ing Pol­lard as cap­tain and I’ve said that be­fore, in the ODIs and T20s,” said the An­tiguan, who snatched 405 wick­ets from 98 Tests.

“I think he is a fan­tas­tic leader. I have a lot of re­spect for him. He knows how to get the best out of his play­ers and it is go­ing to take a lit­tle time as well be­cause we are so far be­hind.”

De­spite the pos­i­tive moves by Sker­ritt re­gard­ing play­er in­volve­ment, Sir Curt­ly said the for­mer tourism min­is­ter in St Kitts had a mas­sive job on his hands in res­cu­ing West In­dies crick­et.

“West In­dies crick­et gen­er­al­ly has been in a se­ri­ous de­cline for about 20 years and even though pres­i­dent Sker­ritt and his crew have a lot of things they want to put in place, it is al­most im­pos­si­ble to fix West In­dies crick­et in one year and not even one term, be­cause one term is two years,” Sir Curt­ly ar­gued.

“It is go­ing to take a lot longer than two years to re­al­ly im­ple­ment the things that they want to im­ple­ment.”

(CMC)