(CMC) — Cricket’s governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), has snubbed CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Sub-committee’s request for a meeting in London next month but says it was open to discussions in the future once Cricket West Indies president, Dave Cameron was present.
Chief executive Dave Richardson told PMSC chairman, St Vincent and the Grenadines leader Dr Ralph Gonsalves, such a meeting would not be possible at the suggested time because the ICC would be holding its quarterly board meetings in Kolkata from April 21-26.
The PMSC had proposed a meeting with the ICC during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London from April 18-20.
Speaking on behalf of ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, Richardson said while the body was open to a meeting with CARICOM at a “convenient date”, such a meeting would only take place once Cameron was involved.
“Mr Manohar is amenable to a meeting with the PMSC at a convenient date but since Cricket West Indies is our member, he is firmly of the view that the meeting should not take place without the attendance of the Chairman of the Cricket West Indies Board, Mr Cameron,” the Trinidad Guardian newspaper quoted Richardson as saying in a letter which was also copied to the prime ministers of Barbados (Freundel Stuart), Jamaica (Andrew Holness) and Trinidad and Tobago (Dr Keith Rowley).
“The ICC offices are located in Dubai and Mr Manohar is based in Nagpur, India. Your proposal to meet in London during the course of your CHOGM from the 18-20 April 2018 will unfortunately not be possible, especially since we are holding our quarterly Board and Committee meetings in Kolkata from the 21-26 April.
“As you may be aware, the ICC is staging an ICC Women’s World T20 in the Caribbean in November this year. In the absence of an alternative, this may provide a more convenient opportunity to meet.”
The ICC response comes as a blow to the PMSC’s “desperate urgency” to discuss the much debated matter of the restructuring of CWI’s governance, which has seen a contentious back-and-forth between CARICOM and the regional governing body over the last 2-1/2 years.
At last month’s two-day Intersessional in Haiti, CARICOM adopted legal advice which confirmed they could challenge CWI’s right, as a private entity, managing the public good of West Indies cricket.
Rowley said then the objective of CARICOM’s actions was “to bring best practice to this public good of West Indies cricket.”
And the discussions with the ICC were expected to be held against “the background of this interpretation of the protection of the public good of West Indies cricket.”
The ICC response is also the latest twist in the saga which began when CARICOM intervened in the 2014 players crisis, triggered by the controversial abandoned tour of India and which resulted in the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) slapping the Dave Cameron-led regional governing body with a US$42 million claim for damages.
A subsequent CARICOM-commissioned Governance Report, authored by eminent UWI Cave Hill principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, branded the CWI structure “antiquated, obsolete and anachronistic”, and recommended its “immediate dissolution … and the appointment of an Interim Board.”
CWI categorically rejected the report’s findings and recommendations.
