ST JOHN’S, An­tigua — Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low is ful­ly sup­port­ing West In­dies Head Coach Daren Sam­my amid the calls for his re­moval by for­mer play­ers af­ter the Test se­ries against Aus­tralia end­ed in em­bar­rass­ing fash­ion for the home side on Mon­day, with them be­ing bun­dled out for 27 runs in the sec­ond in­nings at Sabi­na Park, los­ing by a mam­moth 176 runs and record­ing the sec­ond-low­est score in the his­to­ry of Test crick­et.

Speak­ing on the Ma­son and Guest Show on the Voice of Bar­ba­dos 92.9 FM on Tues­day night, Dr Shal­low chas­tised Sam­my’s crit­ics.

He said, “Daren Sam­my The head coach of the West needs a team; he is be­ing crit­i­cised un­fair­ly be­cause he’s St Lu­cian, and we need to call out peo­ple when they’re be­ing un­fair.”

Mean­while, Shal­low has re­quest­ed an im­me­di­ate re­view of the just-con­clud­ed Test se­ries against Aus­tralia, which the West In­dies lost 3-0.

That per­for­mance fol­lowed loss­es in Bar­ba­dos and Grena­da by 159 runs and 133 runs in the first and sec­ond Tests, re­spec­tive­ly.

In a state­ment is­sued on Tues­day, Dr Shal­low said an ur­gent re­view was nec­es­sary.

He said he had in­vit­ed crick­et­ing leg­ends Sir Clive Lloyd, Sir Vi­vian Richards, and Bri­an Lara to help in the process.

“As an im­me­di­ate step, I have ad­vised the Chair of the Crick­et Strat­e­gy and Of­fi­ci­at­ing Com­mit­tee to con­vene an emer­gency meet­ing to re­view the re­cent test se­ries against Aus­tralia, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fi­nal match.

“To strength­en the dis­cus­sions, I have ex­tend­ed in­vi­ta­tions to three of our great­est bats­men ever: Sir Clive Lloyd, Sir Vi­vian Richards, and Bri­an Lara. They will join past greats Dr Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, Dr The Most Ho­n­ourable Desmond Haynes and Ian Brad­shaw, who al­ready serve on the com­mit­tee,” the re­lease stat­ed.

“This en­gage­ment is not cer­e­mo­ni­al. These are men who helped de­fine our gold­en eras, and their per­spec­tives will be in­valu­able as we shape the next phase of our crick­et de­vel­op­ment. We in­tend for this gath­er­ing to re­sult in tan­gi­ble, ac­tion­able rec­om­men­da­tions.”

De­spite the dis­ap­point­ing re­sults in the Test se­ries, Dr Shal­low main­tained that the re­gion­al team would not be de­fined by the out­come.

He said the Windies were cur­rent­ly in a re­build­ing phase and would take time to reach their tar­get.

“The re­sult hurts deeply, not on­ly be­cause of how we lost but be­cause of what West In­dies crick­et has al­ways rep­re­sent­ed to our peo­ple: pride, iden­ti­ty, and pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“There will be some sleep­less nights ahead for many of us, in­clud­ing the play­ers, who I know feel this loss just as heav­i­ly. But while dis­ap­point­ment is nat­ur­al, we must not al­low this mo­ment Mrs to de­fine our jour­ney,” the state­ment fur­ther stat­ed.

“We are in a re­build­ing phase, steadi­ly in­vest­ing in the next gen­er­a­tion, and reignit­ing the spir­it that has long made West In­dies crick­et a force in the world.

“Progress is rarely straight­for­ward. It takes time, per­se­ver­ance, and be­lief, es­pe­cial­ly in our most dif­fi­cult mo­ments. The road ahead will test us, but I have faith in the tal­ent and com­mit­ment of our play­ers when they ap­ply them­selves.

“We have al­ready seen en­cour­ag­ing signs, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the ball. Our bat­ters are keen but now must be even more de­lib­er­ate as they work to im­prove. Now is not the time to turn away. Now is the time to stand even clos­er as a peo­ple. These are the mo­ments that shape us.”

For­mer T&T PM Dr Row­ley calls for play­ers’ ac­count­abil­i­ty

Al­so, for­mer chair­man of the Cari­com sub­com­mit­tee for crick­et, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, made a stern call for the play­ers to be ac­count­able.

“Keep the bowlers and fire ALL the bats­men, at least for now.”

He added. “It must end NOW! We must re­turn to an ac­count­able de­vel­op­ment mod­el which is based on per­for­mance, im­prove­ment and progress.”

Dr Row­ley served as the chair of the sub­com­mit­tee up un­til he re­signed from of­fice in March this year.

He closed by adding, “This re­sult is a gut punch for West In­dies crick­et and must be re­spond­ed to with wide­spread house clean­ing and re­set. Wait­ing for a mir­a­cle from con­stant fail­ure just will not de­liv­er any sat­is­fac­to­ry re­sults.”

Cur­rent chair­man of the crick­et sub­com­mit­tee, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­fan Ali, who took up of­fice up­on Row­ley’s re­tire­ment, says it is time for a full eval­u­a­tion and ac­count­abil­i­ty to the peo­ple of this re­gion for the dis­as­trous bat­ting per­for­mance of the West In­dies Crick­et Team.

He added, “We can­not dis­re­gard what all of us wit­nessed and en­dured in the last three test match­es. This is not about our play­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors, or any in­di­vid­ual; it is an en­tire sys­tem that is fail­ing, and to­geth­er, all of us must fix it now. This can­not con­tin­ue in­to an­oth­er se­ries; we must not al­low it to.”