KINGSTON–A re­port on the state of West In­dies crick­et is strong­ly rec­om­mend­ing the im­me­di­ate dis­so­lu­tion of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB), Crick­et sources with knowl­edge of the

The five mem­ber Crick­et Re­view Pan­el ap­point­ed by the CARI­COM Sub-com­mit­tee of Crick­et Gov­er­nance, is rec­om­mend­ing the ap­point­ment of an in­ter­im board to run the af­fairs of the sport in the re­gion.

The re­port, which was made pub­lic dur­ing a live news con­fer­ence in Grena­da yes­ter­day calls for a the cre­ation of a new gov­er­nance and man­age­ment struc­ture for crick­et in the re­gion as well as a new set of cri­te­ria for the se­lec­tion of the man­age­ment and board mem­bers of WICB.

Mean­time , Pres­i­dent of WICB Dave Cameron has promised a "full re­sponse" to the re­port.

For the new few days the Guardian will pub­lish the full re­port through a se­ries of pub­li­ca­tions.

Full Re­port of the CARI­COM Crick­et Re­view Pan­el

<A.Overview>

This fi­nal Re­port of the CARI­COM Crick­et Re­view Pan­el is the out­come of three months of con­sul­ta­tion, in­ter­views, de­lib­er­a­tions, and meet­ings by a five mem­ber pan­el of CARI­COM cit­i­zens ap­point­ed by the Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee on the Gov­er­nance of West In­dies Crick­et. The com­po­si­tion of the pan­el, its terms of ref­er­ence and the list of in­ter­vie­wees are pre­sent­ed in Ap­pen­dices I � III. The main man­date of the Pan­el was to re­view the ad­min­is­tra­tive and gov­er­nance struc­ture of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) and sub­mit its rec­om­men­da­tion through the CARI­COM Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al to the Chair­man of the Crick­et Gov­er­nance Com­mit­tee, Dr. the Right Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Mitchell, Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da. This is the Pan­el's sub­mis­sion.

<B.In­tro­duc­tion: The Ex­ist­ing Gov­er­nance Struc­ture>

Caribbean so­ci­eties and the West In­dies game of crick­et have changed dras­ti­cal­ly since the ori­gins of the lat­ter in its or­ga­nized, com­pet­i­tive form in the British colo­nial Caribbean, in the mid to late nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. In the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, the game of crick­et is now em­bed­ded in the glob­al, cor­po­rate world of busi­ness. Caribbean peo­ple con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence ex­cite­ment or de­spair about what hap­pens on every field of play, to ag­o­nize about the for­tunes, suc­cess­es, fail­ures or foibles of the West In­dies teams; but Caribbean crick­et is far more than the pub­lic's sup­port and con­sump­tion of West In­dies crick­et.

Crick­et to­day con­sti­tutes a glob­al, mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar so­cial and eco­nom­ic en­ter­prise. The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for de­liv­ery of this prod­uct at the present time, giv­en the cor­po­rate struc­ture of the WICB, falls to the share­hold­ers, com­prised of the six ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards, and the over­ar­ch­ing, re­gion­al West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB). The share­hold­ers of West In­dies crick­et, led by the WICB, how­ev­er, re­ly on the ac­tive in­volve­ment of oth­er stake­hold­ers of the game to de­liv­er its prod­uct. These in­clude sev­er­al Caribbean gov­ern­ments who fi­nance the con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of the sta­dia where the game is played; sev­er­al im­por­tant in­dus­tries such as tourism, avi­a­tion and food and bev­er­ages; for­mer play­ers, some of whom con­sti­tute an elite group of ex­em­plary am­bas­sadors of the game known as the Leg­ends and the cur­rent play­ers, both women and men, and their rep­re­sen­ta­tive or­ga­ni­za­tion, the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA) con­sti­tute an­oth­er key group of stake­hold­ers. Fi­nal­ly, the Caribbean pub­lic com­pletes the stake­hold­er com­mu­ni­ty on which the de­liv­ery of the pub­lic good of West In­dies Crick­et de­pends.

In spite of sub­stan­tial trans­for­ma­tion and mod­ern­iza­tion of the busi­ness of crick­et in oth­er coun­tries such as Aus­tralia (Crick­et Aus­tralia) and Eng­land (Eng­land and Wales Crick­et Board), the gov­er­nance of West In­dies crick­et has failed to evolve in a man­ner which ac­cords with the ex­i­gen­cies of the mod­ern game, but con­tin­ues to be gov­erned by a struc­ture that is not re­flec­tive of the trans­for­ma­tion of the game else­where. This is es­pe­cial­ly ev­i­dent in re­la­tion to the re­quire­ments of the play­er-coach­ing com­mu­ni­ty, stake­hold­er in­vestors, and the ex­pec­ta­tions of the Caribbean crick­et­ing pub­lic. The ex­ist­ing gov­er­nance struc­ture, in its most es­sen­tial fea­tures, re­mains close­ly aligned to its ori­gins in the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry when it was es­tab­lished to co­or­di­nate in­ter-colo­nial tour­na­ments, se­lect West In­di­an XIs and tour­ing teams, than with the mod­ern gov­er­nance, ad­min­is­tra­tion and on­go­ing com­mer­cial progress of the in­dus­try of crick­et in oth­er parts of the world.

The Pan­el wish­es to state un­equiv­o­cal­ly it has no is­sues with the in­di­vid­u­als who oc­cu­py the lead­er­ship and com­po­si­tion of the WICB or the ter­ri­to­r­i­al Boards. In­stead, we are of the view that crick­et is in­creas­ing­ly a grow­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic sub sec­tor in the Caribbean. The re­quire­ments and in­puts for its ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery, man­age­ment and on­go­ing growth have evolved and changed con­sid­er­ably. These changes have made the ex­ist­ing sys­tems of gov­er­nance anachro­nis­tic. The Pan­el states that the cur­rent gov­er­nance struc­ture is out of align­ment with the mod­ern re­quire­ments of the game at the na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. The pro­duc­tion, de­liv­ery and on­go­ing ad­vance of what we call West In­dies crick­et, has out­grown the gov­er­nance and ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tems by which it has been de­liv­ered, with some mod­i­fi­ca­tions, since the 1920s. Hence, if West In­dies crick­et is to re­alise its true po­ten­tial as a dy­nam­ic and fi­nan­cial­ly lu­cra­tive ser­vice ex­port sec­tor, ca­pa­ble of restor­ing the pride of Caribbean peo­ple and fos­ter­ing their greater sense of to­geth­er­ness, then the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions to mod­ernise its gov­er­nance arrange­ments must be tak­en with­out fur­ther de­lay. It is now past the time to ac­cept that the cur­rent gov­er­nance struc­tures are ob­so­lete.

The Pan­el Rec­om­mends the Cre­ation of a New Gov­er­nance and Man­age­ment Ar­chi­tec­ture for West In­dies Crick­et.

In the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry Caribbean, the sport­ing out­comes of the game of crick­et will con­tin­ue to dra­mat­i­cal­ly af­fect the psy­che of Caribbean peo­ple. The en­dur­ing and on­go­ing im­pact of the tri­umphs and tribu­la­tions of suc­ces­sive West In­dies crick­et teams on the crick­et­ing pub­lic will con­tin­ue to be well doc­u­ment­ed and re­searched. Yet we main­tain that the is­sues con­fronting the gov­er­nance and ad­min­is­tra­tion of crick­et, ex­ceed the dy­nam­ics of the game on the field of play and its ef­fect on the psy­che of Caribbean peo­ple.

Com­mit­tee

Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee

Eu­dine Bar­riteau Chair

Sir Den­nis By­ron Mem­ber

Dwain Gill Mem­ber

Deryck Mur­ray Mem­ber

War­ren Smith Mem­ber