West Indies Board to Blame for Antigua Farce

Source: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/current/story/392295.html

The West Indies Cricket Board was responsible for the shambles of the abandoned Test at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium, according to the ICC chief executives' committee. The announcement came after the second day of their meeting in Johannesburg.

The executive committee reconfirmed that the responsibility for ensuring the delivery of a venue fit for the purpose of international cricket rested with the host member board. Until now, the WICB has been reluctant to accept that it and not the local board was at fault for not ensuring the venue was up to standard.

The committee recommended that from now on all boards would be required to notify the ICC in February of each year the identity of all venues they intended to use for international matches in the following 12 months. This would need to be accompanied by a declaration that the grounds were up to standards already agreed by the ICC.

With regards to the outfield in Antigua, this is currently the subject of an ICC investigation and the WICB has been asked to submit its own report. The ICC has the power to impose a sanction ranging from a warning or a fine up to a suspension of international status for the venue.

NOTE: This flies in the face of statements by Dr. Peters seeking to cast blame on LICA and the ABCA. In an interview I heard him saying words to the effect that the WICB leases the ground from the local Board whose responsibility it is to deliver it in good condition. He is either being evasive or he does not know and understand how these thing work. Or perhaps he is looking for a scapegoat. What do you have Cricket Operations Officers for? What do you have a Ground Committee for? Why do you spend money on recees?

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Several Stand to Lose Money Invested with Stanford

Several West Indians players, including Shiv, as well and Garner and Gibbs stand to lose their investment with Stanford.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-1149423/West-Indian-winners-miss-Stanford-millions-following-fraud-probe.html

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Stanford Stumped!

Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/business/18stanford.html

An interesting note is that the whereabouts of Stanford is uncertain. I can hear the legends now - "yeah, yeah..."

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Donald Peters at it again

Dr. Donald Peters as quoted by the Antigua Sun (online edition, February 18):

“The question about what happened has been asked of me over 100 times,” he said. “But I am choosing to look forward. There is a lot of blame to go around.

“At this point, it has happened, we will ensure it does not happen again, but it was great that everybody threw their weight behind getting the Antigua Recreation Grounds ready, and maybe down the line, in the next six months or so, we can probably look at what happened and make sure it does not happen again.

“We will investigate all of the processes and find out where the lapses were, and when we have found this out, we will put systems in place to deal with them. We will get an independent person to do this. Not a WICB person.”

I would have thought that the situation was serious enough to warrant an immediate investigation. Dr. Peters obviously does not agree. No doubt he will be attending all the matches as a first priority. Then perhaps, along with the Stanford situation, everything will be forgotten. He will probably travel to England during the next tour and then there is Cricket again in the West Indies and....

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A Bunch of Ignoramuses

The WICB continues to amaze and amuse. The recent debacle in Antigua boggles the mind that we could have such incompetents managing our cricket. This is an international game and the blame must be laid fairly and squarely on the Board and Secretariat, not LICA. There was a time when the Board was blamed for not hiring "cricketers". These are the same individual running things now. What is their excuse?

The Antigua Sun reported that "during an interview with ZDK’s Patricia Benjamin on Tuesday, ("Kuma" ) Rodney (Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association) admitted that the growth of the grass at the facility is not what he had expected but that the other aspects of the preparation at the facility were in “near” perfect conditions.

“The grounds, sometime after Romantic Rhythms, was taken up and redone and, right now, you can almost call it perfect. The growth of the grass, to be honest, is not what we had really expected but the ground is still in a nice playable condition,” he said.

He must have had his head in the proverbial sand or somewhere else!

This is just one in a string of embarrassments. We remember the President's officegate affair, the CEO nonsensical babbling and, what the media has been silent on, the continued insult to women's cricket in terms of the appointments of the management team to the World Cup...

The show goes on. Believe me, this will not be the last such episode.

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WPA VP Hinds Slams WICB CEO

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_sports?id=161434157

Statements attributed to the chief executive officer of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Dr Donald Peters, have prompted public condemnation by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), in particular vice-president Wavell Hinds.

Commenting on the lack of remuneration for first-class cricketers in the Caribbean, Peters was quoted as saying:

"The cricketers should not have to live with that situation but sometimes they are their own worst enemy. The West Indies Players Association (WIPA) has worked against them in terms of expanding the realm of professional cricket."

The statement was part of an article that was examining the state of West Indies cricket.

"Erroneous and shocking" was the way Hinds, through the WIPA release, reacted to the comments.

Hinds added: "We at WIPA will not highlight what we see as the many acts and omissions on the part of the WICB, since the assumption of duty of the CEO, which appear to have been costly and may have undermined confidence among several stakeholders, including the players themselves, sponsors and the public at large."

WIPA through their vice-president said they regretted that such an "incorrect and bizarre characterisation of players and their association should emanate from a very senior official of the WICB with whom WIPA interfaces on a regular basis to deal with, inter alia, players' contracts, other playing conditions and related cricketing matters."

The release ended: "Mr Hinds, therefore, finds the statement of the WICB's CEO particularly disturbing and in total conflict with the terms of conduct agreed to by both parties and hopes that it will not affect immediate or future relations between the WICB and WIPA."

I WISH IF THE MEDIA COULD TREAT THE PLIGHT OF OUR WOMEN'S CRICKETERS WITH THE SAME ENTHUSIASM AS THEY DO MEN'S CRICKET

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The Insult to Women's Cricket Continues

It was with some disgust that I learnt of the surreptitious appointment of a junior employee of the WICB as the Manager of the West Indies Women Cricket Team which leaves these shores in a few weeks for the Women's Cricket World Cup. This has nothing to do with the appointee herself whom I consider a friend and whom I had recruited. It is with the process and the continued insult to Women's Cricket, Women Cricketers and those who struggled over the years for the development of Women's Cricket. One would have thought that an event of this nature would require the appointment of someone with experience and expertise in Women's cricket matters.

The unceremonial dumping of the former President of the Women's Cricket Federation as Manager without explanation adds insult to injury; it is my understanding that the Board was unaware of the decision taken by the Secretariat management. This on top of the fact that the WICB ignored the Federation's recommendation for Coach and Physio. The entire management team now consists of persons with little or no background in women's cricket!

There was a song on the radio this morning which speaks to this situation: "no one want to plant the corn, everybody want to raid the barn". This is exactly what is happening and women's cricket can only suffer!

The WICB's Women Committee, if it still exists, should resign en bloc.

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