Vin­ode Mam­chan

With the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) di­rec­tors due to meet on March 27 to de­cide on the pres­i­den­cy of the re­gion­al body, Dr Julien Hunte has had a change of heart and wants to stay on for a fourth term.

Hunte was large­ly ex­pect­ed to hand over the reigns to vice-pres­i­dent Dave Cameron, but sources say the Wind­ward Is­lands hon­cho has de­cid­ed that he is not ready to give up what many have de­scribed as one of the most pres­ti­gious jobs in the re­gion.

Cameron was ex­pect­ed to suc­ceed Hunte four years ago, but the pres­i­dent's last-minute cam­paign­ing al­lowed him a third term in of­fice. He took over the lead­er­ship of the board in 2007.

Af­ter of­fer­ing him­self for the post in 2011, Cameron stood down to give Hunte a third term–one which Hunte promised would be his last.

How­ev­er, sources say that Hunte has sig­nalled his in­ten­tions to stay at the helm, de­spite Cameron's six years as un­der­study.

Hunte is ex­pect­ed to have as his run­ning mate ei­ther Gre­go­ry Shilling­ford from the Lee­ward Is­lands or Joel Gar­ner from Bar­ba­dos for the vice-pres­i­dent's po­si­tion. Cameron will be chal­leng­ing for the pres­i­den­cy with Do­mini­can Em­manuel Nan­tan as his vice-pres­i­dent.

A let­ter penned by new Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) pres­i­dent Druba­hadur has called on Hunte to car­ry on for an­oth­er two years, while Cameron is groomed for the pres­i­den­cy.

Sources say there is more to Druba­hadur's let­ter than meets the eye, since Guyana is look­ing to groom for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Clive Lloyd to take over the post in two years' time.

"If Cameron takes over, it is un­like­ly that he would leave af­ter one term. This would scup­per any moves which Guyana have of putting Lloyd up in two years' time. The idea is to bring Lloyd in...so that Guyana are go­ing to sup­port Hunte stay­ing on."

Druba­hadur, in his let­ter to Hunte, stat­ed: "I am aware that short­ly the mem­bers will be nom­i­nat­ing can­di­dates for the po­si­tions of pres­i­dent and vice-pres­i­dent, sim­ply be­cause I have been can­vassed on all sides in­volved and re­cent­ly re­ceived the nec­es­sary forms for such nom­i­na­tions.

"Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and con­sul­ta­tion with of­fi­cers of the GCB, I humbly re­quest that care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to sta­bil­i­ty at the WICB lev­el. It cer­tain­ly does not serve the in­ter­est of Guyana and the West In­dies if there is an ad­ver­sar­i­al and di­vi­sive cam­paign for these im­por­tant po­si­tions. The pow­er­ful forces against us may very well see this as an­oth­er rea­son and op­por­tu­ni­ty to strike.

"I am aware that promis­es were made some time ago on the part of Guyana. How­ev­er, the cir­cum­stances then were very dif­fer­ent and the GCB had to make some dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions. I can as­sure you that very care­ful de­lib­er­a­tions took place pri­or to mak­ing this re­quest.

"At this time, I pro­pose to you that the sta­tus quo re­mains the same with­in the hi­er­ar­chy of the WICB for an­oth­er two years, dur­ing which time Mr Dave Cameron should be pre­pared for the pres­i­den­cy. Dr Hunte has served with dis­tinc­tion and should con­tin­ue for an­oth­er term es­pe­cial­ly since we have just em­ployed a new CEO who may al­so need some time to get him­self ac­quaint­ed with the board's in­tri­cate op­er­a­tions."

While Guyana ap­pears to want Hunte, both the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion and the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) want Hunte to leave.

The Ja­maican Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion is throw­ing its weight be­hind Cameron and Nan­ton.

An e-mail mak­ing the rounds from one of the Ja­maican di­rec­tors states: "Cameron has been VP for eight years and has a clear ob­jec­tive to bet­ter re­source and im­prove ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards. This has been one of the ma­jor chal­lenges with the cur­rent WICB lead­er­ship. In fact, pres­i­dent Hunte has not vis­it­ed Ja­maica since the rather rude at­tack on our PM...not even for the J50 test match WI vs NZ.

"The nom­i­na­tion and sup­port for Mr Shilling­ford would be un­for­tu­nate for good gov­er­nance, giv­en is­sues with WICB and lack of struc­ture and per­for­mance in Lee­ward Is­lands crick­et, es­pe­cial­ly com­pared with Wind­wards. No one can doubt Joel Gar­ner's con­tri­bu­tion to WI crick­et es­pe­cial­ly as a play­er. How­ev­er, as an ad­min­is­tra­tor...far less ef­fec­tive and cer­tain­ly not vi­sion­ary."

The TTCB is al­so re­port­ed to be in sup­port of Cameron. "He has been vice-pres­i­dent dur­ing a pe­ri­od when much im­prove­ment has come the way of West In­dies crick­et. And we feel Hunte's time is up. We need some new blood at the helm, and Hunte should re­spect that. It is time for him to go."