Rain, No Play

New WICB President, Julian Hunte.

After being elected as the new President of the WICB today, Julian Hunte demonstrated in his first day on the job the kind of wisdom that is giving this writer reason to hope for a better day in West Indies cricket. Today, for the first time, the WIPA president, Dinanath Ramnarine was made a (non-member) director of the WICB along with 3 other people: Professor Hillary Beckles, the principal of the Cave Hill campus of the UWI; Ken Hewitt, head of the finance committee of the recent World Cup and importantly former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd.

In doing this, Hunte is clearly extending an olive branch not only to Ramnarine and to Lloyd, the most successful captain in Windies history, but to the players in general and seems to have grasped one of the principal points in the aide memoire submitted by the governance committee chaired by former Jamaican Prime Minister, PJ Patterson.

The Board needs to demonstrate that it values the players as human and that it accepts WIPA as a full partner in West Indies Cricket.

One has to acknowledge the failings of the present set of players in their calamitous record, particular in Tests, over the last two years. The situation, however, will not be improved by accusations and innuendos on the part of WICB officers as has been the norm in the previous administration. Instead the players need to be viewed not as mere employees, but as full partners in West Indies cricket.

Hunte, 67, hails from the island of St. Lucia and has an accomplished resume of being a successful businessman, a former mayor of Castries, the St Lucian capital, a former Opposition Leader in St. Lucian as well as former ambassador to the United Nations and presdent of the 58th General Assembly of the United Nations. Unlike his immediate predecessor, Hunte also has a background in cricket, having been President of the St. Lucia and Windward Islands Cricket Associations as well as a former vice president of the WICB. Jamaican sports journalist Tony Becca wrote glowingly about Hunte as "the man for the WICB". I for one was skeptical, as Ken Gordon, had brought sterling credentials to the job as well. However, with this move Hunte seems to be discontinuing the recent strife between the WICB and WIPA, a move that is essential to the well being of West Indies cricket. The now ex-President Ken Gordon, gave his farewell speech today, and said that "there is a new dawn..." in West Indies cricket in speaking of his own administration, but we humbly submit that Gordon's words may very well be accurate but instead apply to the incoming administration rather than to anything his administration accomplished.

Gordon in his speech pointed to the financial viability that the WICB now has and for this he must be given full credit. He inherited an organization that was heavily in debt and now with profits from the World Cup, the WICB will have virtually discharged all its debts. Financial viability is essential for any sporting organization and Gordon must get credit for accomplishing this. However, cricket is still a game played by flesh and blood human beings and not by balance accounts. Cricket, we would like to think, is still the gentleman's game, the game of nobility and decency, the game of trust and honour. Gordon's administration fell down badly in this area in it's relationship with it's players, both current and former ones. The dispute with WIPA reached new levels of bitterness recently, preventing any real cooperation between the two bodies. Gordon also announced plans for the much needed Cricket Academy, but that it has taken so long to get operational is also another sore point for Gordon's administration. The fact that the West Indies failed to win a single Test match any where in the world during Gordon's two year tenure is enough evidence that a new dawn is clearly necessary.

And so it is with hope and optimism that we welcome the presidency of the Hon. Julian R. Hunte. A new dawn is indeed needed and just maybe there is a sunbeam or two bursting over the horizon.

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