Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Vice Pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath slammed crit­ics of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low in the af­ter­math of West In­dies be­ing bowled out for 27 runs against Aus­tralia in the third and fi­nal Test at Sabi­na Park last week Mon­day.

Bas­sarath used the op­por­tu­ni­ty of de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Women’s Un­der 19 tour­na­ment at Trinidad Hilton, St Ann's.

Bas­sarath crit­i­cised se­vere­ly those whom he de­scribed as arm­chair crit­ics with­out call­ing their names and said they “came out of their holes” to crit­i­cise the CWI Pres­i­dent since the de­ba­cle in Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica.

In an ad­dress that was more bru­tal than a Chris Gayle in­nings, Bas­sarath, de­scrib­ing one of the crit­ics as a ‘wolf in sheep’s cloth­ing’, said the morn­ing af­ter the match, he wrote “a long-wind­ed epis­tle (that) ap­peared on so­cial me­dia bear­ing his name but clear­ly not writ­ten by him, drip­ping with false con­cerns and man­u­fac­tured out­rage.”

He con­tin­ued, “This, from the man who lit the very fire he now pre­tends to ex­tin­guish. A hyp­ocrite of the high­est or­der.”

The sec­ond crit­ic that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) Pres­i­dent took aim at was a for­mer TTCB ex­ec­u­tive and CWI di­rec­tor; again, no name was called.

Bas­sarath re­ferred to him as a “for­mer CWI Di­rec­tor and TTCB mem­ber” and added, “Who had the au­dac­i­ty to call our Pres­i­dent a ‘colos­sal fail­ure’ in the press?”

A fiery Bas­sarath added, “Let me say this plain­ly: this is the pot call­ing the ket­tle black. This man sat as a di­rec­tor at CWI for years and made no mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion, not re­gion­al­ly, not even lo­cal­ly.”

Then he went af­ter the third in his line of vo­cal fire while re­fer­ring to the third crit­ic as “car­ry­ing a top crick­et of­fice ta­ban­ca for over fif­teen years”, Bas­sarath said.

He con­tin­ued, “He be­lieved he was en­ti­tled to be pres­i­dent of the TTCB. When his close rel­a­tive failed to be­come pres­i­dent of the then WICB, he thought the TTCB throne would be his.”

Sighs and gasps could have been heard among the au­di­ence dur­ing the TTCB pres­i­dent’s ad­dress of the crit­ics, but Bas­sarath, who chal­lenged any­one to con­test the TTCB elec­tions in Oc­to­ber, de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to use a stage to cel­e­brate the re­gion’s teenage crick­eters to ad­dress the naysay­ers at Sat­ur­day’s cel­e­bra­tion of the women’s youth crick­et tour­na­ment.

“This was ap­pro­pri­ate to be said this evening, and ladies and gen­tle­men, I know some of you will be say­ing that I should not say this and I should not say that,” Bas­sarath ex­plained.

He con­tin­ued, “We have to de­fend, from where I sit, we have to de­fend the at­tacks that are com­ing to Dr Kishore Shal­low’s way and Crick­et West In­dies.”

How­ev­er, for­mer West In­dies Crick­et Board di­rec­tor and for­mer TTCB ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Bal­dath Ma­habir ques­tioned if oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, oth­er than the three Basarath re­ferred to, were al­so wrong when they spoke crit­i­cal­ly of the cur­rent West In­dies head coach Daren Sam­my.

“So Hoop­er (Carl), Andy Roberts and the Guardian ed­i­to­r­i­al, plus the thou­sands on so­cial me­dia, are al­so wrong?” he asked.

He con­tin­ued, via a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day, “He speaks know­ing full well that he is safe in his po­lit­i­cal co­coon. De­spite the once revered and beloved sport de­clin­ing dai­ly. He and his friends will con­tin­ue to pre­side over said de­cline. His­to­ry will prove who was cor­rect.”