In­tro­duc­tion

This ar­ti­cle has been prompt­ed by the re­cent dis­grace­ful per­for­mance of the West In­dies (“WI”) crick­et team on Mon­day 14th Ju­ly, 2025 in to­talling a mere 27 in the sec­ond in­nings against Aus­tralia in Sabi­na Park, Ja­maica.

I have been an avid fan and sup­port­er of WI test crick­et for near­ly 70 years. Dur­ing that time, I have at­tend­ed mul­ti­ple test match­es both in the Caribbean and abroad, go­ing as far as South Africa in 1998 - 1999 to see part of the pa­thet­ic white­wash in Dur­ban and Capetown.

How­ev­er, over the past 15 to 20 years, with the con­tin­u­ing de­cline in our per­for­mances, an emo­tion­al di­vorce from WI crick­et was de­lib­er­ate­ly fos­tered so as to not be dis­ap­point­ed by the shod­dy per­for­mances of the team. The stage had been reached where one would laugh off those per­for­mances and not be both­ered to com­plain about them, par­tic­u­lar­ly over the past ten years.

How­ev­er, what oc­curred on Mon­day 14th Ju­ly, 2025 caused a deep sense of out­rage which made it im­per­a­tive that this ar­ti­cle should be writ­ten so that I could be at peace with my­self.

The fun­da­men­tal prob­lem with WI crick­et is the present gov­er­nance struc­ture which has been crit­i­cised in four se­ri­ous re­ports for al­most 20 years.

PART II

The first part of this overview of West In­dies crick­et was pub­lished on Sun­day, Au­gust 31, 2025.

On Sum­ma­ry of Pat­ter­son Re­port

The gov­er­nance struc­ture of WI crick­et has been the sub­ject of three (3) re­ports be­tween 2007 - 2015. First there was the com­mit­tee formed un­der the Chair­man­ship of the for­mer Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter, the Ho­n­ourable PJ Pat­ter­son, which re­port­ed in 2007 (“the Pat­ter­son Re­port”). Sec­ond­ly, there was a com­mit­tee un­der the chair­man­ship of Mr. Charles Wilkin QC which re­port­ed in 2012 (“the Wilkin Re­port”).

The third re­port em­anat­ed from the re­view pan­el (“the Pan­el”) on the gov­er­nance of crick­et chaired by Pro­fes­sor Bar­riteau (“the Bar­riteau Re­port”). In ad­di­tion to the fore­go­ing, there was an­oth­er re­port en­ti­tled “The We­h­by Re­port on Gov­er­nance Re­form of Crick­et West In­dies” (“the We­h­by Re­port”) dat­ed 30th Ju­ly, 2020 which dealt with es­sen­tial­ly the same top­ic.

The var­i­ous is­sues em­a­nat­ing from those re­ports are best ar­tic­u­lat­ed and sum­marised from the orig­i­nal re­port known as the Pat­ter­son Re­port in 2007. The fol­low­ing pas­sages are rel­e­vant and in­struc­tive:

“16.2.3 The Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Boards are the le­gal share­hold­ers, but they do not con­sti­tute the ma­jor stake­hold­ers which are Gov­ern­ments, the Caribbean Pri­vate Sec­tor, and Re­gion­al In­sti­tu­tions, Past and Present Play­ers and the me­dia. The pub­lic pro­vides the re­al cus­tomer base.

West In­dies crick­et is not the pre­serve of the WICB. The peo­ple of the West In­dies own sub­stan­tial rights.

16.2.4 The present com­po­si­tion of the Board in un­wield­ly, re­flect­ing the dom­i­nance of Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who re­gard them­selves as del­e­gates rather than Di­rec­tors of an In­de­pen­dent board, where their du­ty of care and loy­al­ty is owed to the WICB and the WICB alone. This opens the door to the dan­ger of in­su­lar­i­ty and pos­si­ble con­flicts of in­ter­est.

16.2.5 The present struc­ture is cum­ber­some. It does not lend it­self to ef­fec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing or ex­pe­di­tious ac­tion and re­sponse where nec­es­sary.”

16.3.1 The case is com­pelling for the gov­er­nance of crick­et in the West In­dies to be re­struc­tured very dif­fer­ent­ly from what cur­rent­ly ex­ists.

There is lit­tle doubt that the present struc­ture is too un­wield­ly; nor does it pro­vide suf­fi­cient scope for in­volve­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion by all the ma­jor stake­hold­ers.

The West In­dies Board should give way to a more rep­re­sen­ta­tive body.”

There­after, there was the Wilkin Re­port in 2012 in sim­i­lar terms to the Pat­ter­son Re­port. But as to be ex­pect­ed, en­trenched di­rec­tors of the CWI took no steps to im­ple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions to re­form the gov­er­nance struc­ture of WI crick­et.

This was not­ed by the Cari­com Heads at their con­fer­ence in 2015, and they took a de­ci­sion at the next meet­ing in Be­lize on the 16th to 17th Feb­ru­ary, 2016 to write to the ICC in­di­cat­ing their in­ten­tion to be­come in­volved in the gov­er­nance arrange­ments, but not to take over WI crick­et.

The Cari­com Heads’ Recog­ni­tion of the Need for Trans­form­ing and Mod­ern­iz­ing the Gov­er­nance Struc­ture of WI Crick­et: Sup­port of the ICC

This is made clear by the terms of the let­ter of 14th March, 2016 sent un­der the hand of the Ho­n­ourable Mr. Dean Bar­row, Prime Min­is­ter of Be­lize and Chair­man of the Con­fer­ence of the Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com to the Chair­man of the ICC as the gov­ern­ing body for crick­et in the fol­low­ing terms:

“As you are no doubt aware, the Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) have been con­cerned for some years now about the man­ner in which West In­dies crick­et has been ad­min­is­tered—in a word, its gov­er­nance. Their con­cern was fu­elled sig­nif­i­cant­ly in part by the frus­tra­tion be­ing aired by the crick­et­ing pub­lic through­out the Re­gion.

At the in­stance of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) it­self, two Re­ports pre­pared in 2007 by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Ja­maica, Mr Per­ci­val J Pat­ter­son QC and in 2012 by Mr Charles Wilkin QC, both rec­om­mend­ed a se­ries of re­forms to the struc­ture, or­gan­i­sa­tion and work­ing meth­ods of the WICB. Re­gret­tably, these re­forms were not im­ple­ment­ed in their far-reach­ing trans­for­ma­tion­al as­pects, while the on-field per­for­mance and play­er-man­age­ment re­la­tion­ship con­tin­ue to de­cline.

I write now to for­mal­ly ap­prise you of the most re­cent set of steps tak­en by the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in 2015, to have the prob­lems plagu­ing crick­et ad­dressed.

These in­clude the es­tab­lish­ment of a Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al Crick­et Gov­er­nance Com­mit­tee un­der the Chair­man­ship of the Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da, Dr the Rt Hon Kei­th Mitchell. The Com­mit­tee had ex­ten­sive con­sul­ta­tions with the WICB and a num­ber of West In­di­an crick­et Leg­ends and reached agree­ment on the need to ap­point an in­de­pen­dent pan­el to re­view the gov­er­nance of West In­dies crick­et. A copy of the Pan­el’s Re­port is at­tached.

This Re­port called, in­ter alia, for ex­ten­sive re­form, name­ly the re­con­sti­tu­tion of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the WICB through a trans­par­ent and in­de­pen­dent nom­i­na­tion pro­ce­dure. This is con­sis­tent with the Pat­ter­son and Wilkin Re­ports cit­ed above. The Re­port of the Pan­el was re­cent­ly con­sid­ered by the Heads of Gov­ern­ment at their Twen­ty-Sev­enth In­ter-Ses­sion­al Meet­ing held in Be­lize, on 16-17 Feb­ru­ary 2016 and they ac­cept­ed its rec­om­men­da­tions.

I should let you know that the Heads of Gov­ern­ment have made it pel­lu­cid that in all this, their mo­tive is to mod­ernise the man­age­ment of the game and im­prove the gov­er­nance arrange­ments that cur­rent­ly ex­ist for what is large­ly con­sid­ered to be a pub­lic good, man­aged by a pri­vate com­pa­ny — and not the takeover of the game by Gov­ern­ments in the Re­gion.

In the cir­cum­stances, I am writ­ing to you on be­half of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com, in your ca­pac­i­ty as Chair­man of the Gov­ern­ing Body of in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, to bring this cur­rent state of af­fairs to your at­ten­tion.

Through this, it is my hope that I can ini­ti­ate an ex­change of in­for­ma­tion and in­voke your ap­pre­ci­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing of the process of trans­for­ma­tion­al change of West In­dies crick­et be­ing pur­sued by the Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com.”

It was against the back­ground of that let­ter, that the un­der­signed was re­quest­ed by the rel­e­vant Head of Gov­ern­ment and the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at to pro­vide an Opin­ion deal­ing with the num­ber of le­gal is­sues sur­round­ing the pro­posed in­volve­ment of Cari­com in re­struc­tur­ing the gov­er­nance of WI crick­et.

Opin­ion of 22nd June, 2016 pro­vid­ed to the CARI­COM Heads and the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at That Opin­ion was done gratis for the love of WI crick­et. Af­ter ex­am­in­ing a num­ber of is­sues in­clud­ing the de­ci­sion of the In­di­an Supreme Court in the BC­CI case, the ICC guide­lines on gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion in crick­et and the de­vel­op­ments in oth­er test play­ing coun­tries as to the gov­er­nance struc­tures, the Opin­ion end­ed by ad­vis­ing in

sum­ma­ry as fol­lows:

“63. That there is no le­gal ba­sis up­on which the Heads of Gov­ern­ment can ef­fect the im­me­di­ate dis­so­lu­tion of the WICB with­out the agree­ment of

the WICB. The rec­om­men­da­tion for im­me­di­ate dis­so­lu­tion of the WICB was made on the ba­sis that the WICB hav­ing agreed to the ap­point­ment

of the re­view pan­el which led to the Bar­riteau Re­port would have ac­cept­ed the main rec­om­men­da­tion of that re­port that the WICB should im­me­di­ate­ly be dis­solved in a man­ner sim­i­lar to what hap­pened with the Aus­tralian Crick­et Board in Au­gust 2012.

64. That crick­et in the Caribbean can be treat­ed as a pub­lic good i.e. an ac­tiv­i­ty which en­joys and com­mands the in­ter­est and at­ten­tion of a

sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of the cit­i­zens of the Caribbean. The WICB as the body in charge of crick­et is per­form­ing a pub­lic func­tion in re­spect

of which Gov­ern­men­tal in­ter­ven­tion is legal­ly jus­ti­fi­able.

65. That the Gov­ern­ments of the crick­et-play­ing coun­tries of the Caribbean are em­pow­ered as a mat­ter of law to takeover and con­trol West In­di­an

crick­et. How­ev­er, there are neg­a­tive con­se­quences which would flow from such ac­tion in terms of ICC mem­ber­ship.

66. The Heads of Gov­ern­ment have ex­press­ly stat­ed that they have no de­sire to takeover, con­trol and reg­u­late the ad­min­is­tra­tion and op­er­a­tions of crick­et but mere­ly to un­der­take a lim­it­ed in­ter­ven­tion to spon­sor the mod­ern­iza­tion of its gov­er­nance struc­ture. Such in­ter­ven­tion would not be ob­jec­tion­able or in­con­sis­tent with the rules of the ICC in re­la­tion to such mat­ters.

67. In the present gov­er­nance struc­ture, West In­di­an crick­et is out­dat­ed and in­con­sis­tent with In­ter­na­tion­al Best Prac­tice be­cause it places

ter­ri­to­r­i­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion above pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tence among the in­di­vid­u­als to be ap­point­ed as di­rec­tors. By so do­ing, there is an

in­sti­tu­tion­al con­flict of in­ter­est em­bed­ded in the gov­er­nance struc­ture which is to be re­gard­ed as legal­ly flawed.”

The afore­men­tioned Opin­ion was pre­sent­ed to the CARI­COM Heads’ meet­ing in Guyana a cou­ple months lat­er, and re­li­able re­ports in­di­cat­ed that it was de­cid­ed to pro­ceed with the mod­erni­sa­tion of the struc­ture of WI crick­et. The ex­tent to which this was ac­com­plished is not clear.

How­ev­er, what is clear is that there were some mi­nor changes in the num­ber of in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors, but the present struc­ture re­mained sub­stan­tial­ly un­al­tered, whilst the de­cline in WI crick­et con­tin­ues.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, it is the writer’s view that the fol­low­ing ques­tions arise for con­sid­er­a­tion and an­swer, not on­ly by the CARI­COM Heads, but al­so CWI. They are set out here­un­der.

-------------CUT FROM HERE---------to be use as Part III.

Ques­tions for the CARI­COM Heads

Hav­ing rec­og­nized and de­cid­ed over 9 years ago that the de­cline in WI crick­et should be ar­rest­ed by lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment to trans­form the out­dat­ed struc­ture, the ques­tions which arise are as fol­lows:

i. What steps have been tak­en over the past 9 years to ini­ti­ate that process?

ii. Has the pro­posed trans­for­ma­tion of the gov­ern­ment struc­ture been ef­fect­ed?

iii. If not, why not?

Ques­tions for CWI

i. What steps have been tak­en to re­form the gov­er­nance struc­ture of CWI as rec­om­mend­ed by the Re­ports of the com­mit­tees known as the Pat­ter­son Re­port, the Wilkin Re­port, the Bar­riteau Re­port, and the We­h­by Re­port?

ii. What are the rea­sons for fail­ing to mod­ernise the present out­dat­ed struc­ture?

iii. Why have the WI crick­et leg­ends, who know about the game and played the game, not en­joyed sub­stan­tial rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the board of di­rec­tors?

The next ques­tion which aris­es is what are the like­ly con­se­quences if the fore­go­ing ques­tions are not ad­dressed and ac­tion tak­en to mod­ernise and deal with the present out­dat­ed struc­ture of WI crick­et. Those steps would need to be tak­en in ear­ly course be­cause every­thing in­di­cates that WI test crick­et is on the way out. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly so be­cause we now live in an en­vi­ron­ment where T20 crick­et has tak­en over, and the Caribbean Primer League (“CPL”) is wide­ly re­gard­ed as the biggest par­ty in sport. It dom­i­nates and dic­tates many things which take place in crick­et in this part of the world.

What is Like­ly to Hap­pen if No Steps are Tak­en to Trans­form the Gov­er­nance Struc­ture Hav­ing re­gard to the fore­go­ing, we must now all Dare to Face the Truth as the late Tony Co­zi­er would have said. The present re­al­i­ty sug­gests:

i. That test crick­et in the Caribbean is more than like­ly to pass away. We would not be the mor­ti­cians. In­stead, the ICC is quite like­ly to as­sist us in per­form­ing those rights.

ii. CPL, as the biggest par­ty in sport, could with­in the next decade or two sub­stan­tial­ly un­der­mine, if not ex­tin­guish, the proud his­to­ry of WI crick­et ef­fect­ed dur­ing the glo­ry days of 1976 to 1995 un­der the cap­tain­cies of Sir Clive Lloyd and Sir Vi­vian Richards. Caribbean peo­ple will no longer en­joy a sense of pride and in­ter­na­tion­al re­spect when they trav­el, and the ques­tion of crick­et is dis­cussed. In­stead, we are like­ly to be re­gard­ed as a bunch of jok­ers on­ly in­ter­est­ed in par­ty­ing.!