Vin­ode Mam­chan

Giv­en the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the prob­lems af­flict­ing West In­dies crick­et, Queen's Park man­ag­er Jef­frey Guillen is call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion of the en­tire West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB).

On Mon­day, coach Phil Sim­mons was sus­pend­ed for his pub­lic com­ments con­cern­ing the con­tin­ued snub­bing of Dwayne Bra­vo and Kieron Pol­lard by the West In­dies se­lec­tors for the ODI team.

Guillen who at­tend­ed the WICB Town Hall meet­ing in Trinidad last week and asked the pres­i­dent of the WICB, why he didn't re­sign af­ter the In­di­an fi­as­co said: "We have reached a state in our crick­et now where we are in se­ri­ous prob­lems and I have been call­ing for the pres­i­dent of the board to re­sign af­ter In­dia but I think the en­tire board should go now and let us start over with new men and im­ple­ment the PJ Pat­ter­son re­port on the gov­er­nance of West In­dies crick­et.

"Our prob­lems be­ing faced to­day was in the mak­ing for the last 20 years and this is be­cause of the weak gov­er­nance struc­tures in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards. We have peo­ple who I think can do much bet­ter in ad­min­is­ter­ing West In­dies crick­et, let us give them chance.

"It is go­ing to be very dif­fi­cult to get any changes to the set of the WICB but all crick­et fans as stake­hold­ers must do what it takes to be heard and ap­ply pres­sure for change."

Guillen added that chair­man of se­lec­tors Clive Lloyd is not telling the re­al sto­ry as far as the omis­sion of Pol­lard and Bra­vo is con­cerned. "We have a sit­u­a­tion here where Lloyd is now in favour of Bra­vo and Pol­lard com­ing back in­to the ODI team.

He is not telling the re­al sto­ry be­cause in Jan­u­ary when they were over­looked for the South African se­ries he said that Bra­vo was over the hill and Pol­lard was not per­form­ing well enough to be on the team.

"They have not played much crick­et to prove oth­er­wise to him and yet he comes now and sup­ports the guys com­ing back in. This to me is very puz­zling be­cause all of a sud­den Bra­vo it seems is not over the hill any more. There are a lot of unan­swered ques­tions con­cern­ing this sit­u­a­tion and it is clear­ly a case of the play­ers be­ing vic­timised by the WICB for the abort­ed In­di­an tour.

"The board and Lloyd needs to come clean. We have a sit­u­a­tion where Sim­mons speaks his mind be­cause he has al­ways had West In­dies in­ter­est at heart. Here is a man who near­ly died on the field for West In­dies crick­et, so we know where his heart lies. He is a hard work­ing hon­est man and now he is sus­pend­ed by these bunch of jok­ers. We are not go­ing to take this easy, we are go­ing to con­tin­ue to make noise for ac­count­abil­i­ty in West In­dies crick­et."