Re­gion­al heads and for­mer crick­et­ing greats yes­ter­day lam­bast­ed Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) for the state of the game and its or­gan­i­sa­tion in the Caribbean.

Speak­ing via a vir­tu­al call at the Cari­com Re­gion­al Crick­et Con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, an emo­tion­al Michael Hold­ing called on Caribbean heads of gov­ern­ment to “pres­sure” the CWI board in­to re­struc­tur­ing its gov­er­nance mod­el, hit­ting out at the “mad­ness” plagu­ing the game in the re­gion.

In a con­tri­bu­tion that brought the for­mer Ja­maican fast-bowl­ing great to tears, Hold­ing said, “We are just mov­ing from one ad­min­is­tra­tion to an­oth­er un­der the same sys­tem. The same lack of trans­paren­cy ... What we are do­ing in the Caribbean is mad­ness! We need to clean up our act.”

It was then the 1979 World Cup win­ner called on re­gion­al heads to get in­volved and force the CWI to change the way it gov­erns the game.

Hold­ing told the au­di­ence, “We have got to bring pres­sure to bear. If Dr Shal­low (cur­rent CWI pres­i­dent) can­not do it and oth­er pres­i­dents have tried and they can’t do it, we have got to bring out­side pres­sure and the prime min­is­ters of this re­gion have got to un­der­stand that they can use their pres­sure.”

Hold­ing re­vealed he had ac­cess to a re­cent CWI au­dit re­port and it dis­turbed him.

“What is hap­pen­ing with­in the West In­dies crick­et board and with some of the re­gion­al boards just can­not work as far as trans­paren­cy is con­cerned. I was for­tu­nate, or some peo­ple might say un­for­tu­nate, to set eyes on one of the most re­cent that was done at the West In­dies crick­et board and when I read that re­port, I can’t say I was shocked be­cause I heard so many sto­ries but I was de­pressed.”

He added, “Peo­ple will say you don’t want to wash your dirty laun­dry in the pub­lic. You don’t have to wash your dirty laun­dry in the pub­lic if you don’t have dirty laun­dry. They have got to make ex­am­ples of peo­ple and things that hap­pen so they make sure that things don’t con­tin­ue.”

He al­so said the board need­ed to val­ue its spon­sors more, point­ing to an ex­pe­ri­ence where a pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion mis­spelled John­nie Walk­er’s brand on ac­cred­i­ta­tion dur­ing a spon­sor­ship shoot.

Dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion, Mot­t­ley in­sist­ed Cari­com was here to help CWI not take over the gov­er­nance of the game in the re­gion.

She said, “I be­lieve the heads of gov­ern­ment have no role in run­ning West In­dies crick­et but I be­lieve we have a role in sus­tain­ing the en­vi­ron­ment with­in which there can be a bet­ter run West In­dies crick­et frame­work.”

Ad­dress­ing the CWI gov­er­nance mod­el, Mot­t­ley stat­ed can­did­ly, “You can­not have the blur­ring that is tak­ing place now with the gov­er­nance struc­ture. There is too much con­flict. There is too much po­ten­tial for con­tin­u­ing con­flict. Sec­ond­ly, we need to be able to sep­a­rate the busi­ness of crick­et and the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et. While West In­dies crick­et can be a share­hold­er and have its own sep­a­rate class and shares ... the West In­di­an pop­u­la­tion should al­so be giv­en a chance to be share­hold­ers in Crick­et West In­dies and to hold Crick­et West In­dies ac­count­able with re­spect to the busi­ness of crick­et.”

She al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for a “lev­el play­ing field” when it came to women’s crick­et and the men’s game, par­tic­u­lar­ly on in­vest­ments in Caribbean crick­et.

The Bar­ba­dos prime min­is­ter went fur­ther in tout­ing a mixed-gen­der game while al­so throw­ing out the idea of a West In­dies foot­ball team.

Dur­ing the first pan­el dis­cus­sion lat­er on, Mot­t­ley spoke di­rect­ly to CWI pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low, telling him he stood at a “unique op­por­tu­ni­ty in his­to­ry” where he could lead the way for­ward.

She looked at him across the stage, say­ing, “Don’t tell me gov­er­nance is on the ta­ble. Tell me that gov­er­nance is go­ing to be your first pri­or­i­ty to re­solve, and, if you have to go is­land by is­land, coun­try by coun­try, then you will do it and you will have our sup­port to do it, but this no­tion that it will go to the next ad­min­is­tra­tion—this is what hap­pens when you leave it on the ta­ble.”

She al­so chid­ed Shal­low on some as­pects of his man­age­ment, say­ing a CWI pres­i­dent should not be in­ter­view­ing for the role of coach­es.

“That is not your job,” she stern­ly said.

Dr Shal­low would lat­er re­spond by say­ing, “Part of the rea­son we are in the cur­rent state we are is sim­ply be­cause we haven’t adopt­ed most of those rec­om­men­da­tions over the years.

“And I be­lieve this sym­po­sium is a start­ing point of ac­cept­ing the chal­lenges that we face, our short­falls over the years, the count­less sug­ges­tions made to us, in­clud­ing for­mer heads of gov­ern­ments, but cer­tain­ly crick­et ad­min­is­tra­tors, that these sug­ges­tions that have fall­en deaf over the years must now be ac­cept­ed.”

The con­tract the CWI signed with the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) was al­so ad­dressed by T&T Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The PM said, “I want to say to­day that in the in­ter­est of West In­dies crick­et and man­ag­ing re­sources that are avail­able to us and should be avail­able to us, that it is ab­solute­ly es­sen­tial for West In­dies crick­et to re­open the CPL con­tract and to look at the re­sources avail­able to West In­dies crick­et. That lop­sided con­tract must not stand.”

Mot­t­ley would lat­er add, “Michael Hold­ing says it takes cash to care but the re­al­i­ty of our ne­go­ti­a­tions on be­half of West In­dies crick­et has left much to be de­sired. I want to see the CPL con­tract, not be­cause I’m in­ter­lop­er, but be­cause I re­al­ly be­lieve that a con­tract so un­equal­ly yoked ought not to stand for 50 years.”

She raised the ques­tion as the CWI goes through the process­es of TV rights, com­mer­cial rights and brand­ing rights.

“Who is go­ing to make sure those mis­takes don’t hap­pen again?” she asked.

The two-day event brought to­geth­er stake­hold­ers from across the Caribbean to sift through some of the most press­ing is­sues fac­ing the re­gion­al game and will con­clude to­day.