Vin­ode Mam­chan

Good times are ahead for West In­dies crick­et ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) Dave Cameron.

The Ja­maican made the com­ments at a press con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day. He said WICB's earn­ings from In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) events is pro­ject­ed to in­crease by 100 per­cent un­der the new fi­nance struc­ture.

"On Feb­ru­ary 8, the West In­dies Crick­et Board sup­port­ed the key prin­ci­ples re­lat­ed to the gov­er­nance, fi­nance and struc­ture of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) at the board's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing in Sin­ga­pore. There are a num­ber of ben­e­fits to come to West In­dies crick­et from this new set up. It will al­low the West In­dies to grow and de­vel­op the game in the Amer­i­c­as more ro­bust­ly.

"Now there is more rev­enue for the full mem­bers with a Test match fund and a clear path­way for as­so­ciate coun­tries to achieve Test stan­dard. The new fi­nan­cial set up will al­low the WICB to ne­go­ti­ate on a bi­lat­er­al ba­sis tours to oth­er coun­tries.

"Tours in­crease rev­enue and this will re­dound to ben­e­fit of West In­dies crick­et. We can now use these funds to in­vest in our de­vel­op­ment and longer First Class tour­na­ment.

"We project an in­crease of 100 per­cent from ICC events over the next eight years. The Fu­ture Tours Pro­gramme (FTP) is over a pe­ri­od of eight years, ne­go­ti­at­ed by mem­bers and com­piled by the ICC.

"We as full mem­bers are re­quired to play each full mem­ber twice home and away over four years. Cur­rent­ly the West In­dies have the most un­favourable al­lo­ca­tion of match­es based on the cur­rent FTP. You would no­tice that we have been play­ing New Zealand and Bangladesh al­most every year for the last three years. Now these tours are not prof­itable and this is why we have a ma­jor deficit.

"The new­ly ap­proved pro­pos­als will al­low WICB to in­crease the num­ber of prof­itable tours rather than un­prof­itable ones, that we are re­quired to have un­der the FTP.

"Based on the bi­lat­er­al pro­pos­als WICB will be able to ne­go­ti­ate fees when the West In­dies team plays in away se­ries. The ho­n­ourable Pat Rousseau and Clarvis Joseph who have com­ment­ed in the pro­pos­als in the re­gion­al me­dia all vot­ed against this 15 years ago.

"The op­por­tu­ni­ty now comes where we can ne­go­ti­ate fees. We are con­fi­dent we can ne­go­ti­ate more for our brand. Un­der the new pro­pos­als we will al­so be able to ac­cess the Test match fund to as­sist us when we have un­prof­itable tours.

"The WICB has al­ready se­cured com­mit­ments from the ma­jor Test play­ing na­tions for the next eight years. In­creased op­por­tu­ni­ty to play these coun­tries will lead to bet­ter tele­vi­sion and spon­sor­ship deals."

On the mat­ter of de­mo­tion and the two-tier Test sys­tem, Cameron ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the sys­tem. "The top nine Test teams will con­tin­ue to play match­es in the top tier, so the risk of rel­e­ga­tion is for the 10th ranked team. We are ranked 7th as you know, so the im­me­di­ate threat of be­ing de­mot­ed in not there. With in­creased rev­enue we will be in a po­si­tion to grow the sport and then not be­ing ranked 10th."

Crick­et Aus­tralia (CA), the Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia (BC­CI) and Eng­land Crick­et Board (ECB) will be in con­trol of the ICC un­der the new pro­pos­als but the WICB will re­tain all its pow­er. "The WICB has not re­lin­quished any pow­er, we re­main a full mem­ber with full vot­ing rights on all mat­ters. The pres­i­den­cy is on a ro­ta­tion­al one year ba­sis and we are in the mix with that as well.