Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), the peren­ni­al source of per­plex­ing pro­nounce­ments, has again hugged the spot­light in the last week or two. Some­times, if not most of the time, one is left to sit back and won­der where some of their ‘in­ter­est­ing’ de­ci­sions come from.

Let us for­get about the well-doc­u­ment­ed saga of the Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (BCA) and the Guyanese Crick­et Board (GCB) opt­ing out of the CWI meet­ing to ad­dress the We­h­by Re­port on CWI Gov­er­nance Re­form. The on­ly rea­son I am say­ing let us for­get about it is that enough has been writ­ten and said about this top­ic.

How­ev­er, it is crazy that both the BCA and the GBC would have ab­stained from the meet­ing rather than at­tend­ing and mak­ing their feel­ings known to the CWI board. It’s a clas­sic case of opt­ing for the silent treat­ment rather than en­gag­ing in con­struc­tive dis­course – a strat­e­gy akin to bury­ing one’s head in the sand while ex­pect­ing the storm to pass over­head. Sure­ly, air­ing griev­ances with­in the fo­rum de­signed for such pur­pos­es would be a more ef­fec­tive ap­proach. A very strange de­ci­sion from both the BCA and the GBC.

More in­trigu­ing is the el­e­va­tion of Daren Sam­my, the cur­rent West In­dies ODI and T20 head coach, to the helm of the Test team af­ter the present World Test Cham­pi­onship cy­cle. I am not sure if that means the board was not hap­py with the cur­rent Test coach An­dre Co­ley’s per­for­mance, but one can’t help but de­tect a vote of no con­fi­dence in the in­cum­bent coach. Since Co­ley's ap­point­ment in De­cem­ber 2022, the West In­dies have on­ly won one Test se­ries, de­feat­ing Zim­bab­we 2-0 in 2023. The West In­dies lost 2-0 to South Africa and then lost 1-0 to In­dia at home (all in 2023) but un­doubt­ed­ly, the high­light of his tenure was the drawn se­ries 1-1 vs Aus­tralia at the be­gin­ning of 2024 but the sub­se­quent tra­jec­to­ry has been less than stel­lar. A re­sound­ing de­feat in Eng­land los­ing 3-0, cou­pled with a 2-0 home se­ries loss to South Africa, paint­ed a less flat­ter­ing pic­ture, but the 1-1 draw with Bangladesh last month must have been the last straw.

Al­low­ing Bangladesh to come back to win the fi­nal Test in the two-match se­ries was a poor per­for­mance and I sup­pose coach Co­ley has to ac­cept the blame. While Co­ley un­doubt­ed­ly bears some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, it would be fool­ish to place the en­tire­ty of the blame at his feet. A sys­temic over­haul of the squad is clear­ly in or­der. Sam­my’s first task will be a ruth­less au­dit of per­son­nel; a process that may well ne­ces­si­tate some dif­fi­cult, but nec­es­sary, de­ci­sions. Sam­my will have to re­view the squad and make some dras­tic and telling changes go­ing for­ward if he has to be suc­cess­ful with the Test squad.

Co­ley has one fi­nal act; a two-Test se­ries against Pak­istan on Jan­u­ary 16 and Jan­u­ary 24. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, giv­en the an­tic­i­pat­ed spin-friend­ly con­di­tions, a dra­mat­ic turn­around seems im­prob­a­ble, as the pitch­es will turn square from ball one and I don’t be­lieve our bat­ting will be able to cope with the turn­ing ball. How­ev­er, a dis­play of grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion, rather than a meek sur­ren­der, would at least of­fer some hope to the long-suf­fer­ing Caribbean crick­et­ing pub­lic. The de­feat against Bangladesh was eas­i­ly one of the worst per­for­mances by a West In­dies team at home for a long time.

Sam­my, it is hoped, will not on­ly im­ple­ment tac­ti­cal changes but maybe, just maybe, en­cour­age some of the prodi­gal sons of red-ball crick­et who are good enough to make the team, to come back in­to the fray and play all the for­mats as play­ers do from so many oth­er coun­tries. One of the strong points with Sam­my is that the play­ers seem to play for him. He is a won­der­ful mo­ti­va­tor and his renowned man-man­age­ment skills and mo­ti­va­tion­al prowess could prove in­valu­able in ex­tract­ing the full po­ten­tial with­in the squad. If he can in­spire play­ers to per­form at their peak in the Test are­na, he will have won half the bat­tle. I wish him well.

An­oth­er shrewd move by the CWI is the ap­point­ment of Chris Dehring as the new Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO). In­ter­est­ing­ly enough, the board in­di­cat­ed there were over 50 ap­pli­cants from all over the world ap­ply­ing for the po­si­tion and the fact that he emerged vic­to­ri­ous speaks vol­umes.

Dehring, whom I’ve en­coun­tered in the past dur­ing my for­mer em­ploy­er’s spon­sor­ship of West In­dies crick­et, is a no-non­sense char­ac­ter who has, as a leader, a clear vi­sion as to what he wants to do and how he will achieve it. His ex­per­tise spans fi­nance, sports man­age­ment, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, and me­dia. More im­por­tant to me though, is that he is a true West In­di­an, a son of the soil, in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with the re­gion’s cul­ture and the chal­lenges fac­ing West In­dies crick­et. He un­der­stands the cul­ture of the peo­ple, he un­der­stands what would be need­ed to dri­ve West In­dies crick­et for­ward and most im­por­tant­ly, he will not be afraid to make hard de­ci­sions in the in­ter­est of West In­dies crick­et. Dehring will look at where West In­dies crick­et is from an ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tion and based on his pas­sion for West In­dies crick­et, I an­tic­i­pate pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments un­der his stew­ard­ship, pro­vid­ed he re­ceives the req­ui­site sup­port (which I hope he gets) to car­ry West In­dies crick­et for­ward.

On to the field of play, and the se­lec­tion of An­dre Fletch­er to re­place Evin Lewis, while Amir Jan­goo, fresh off a re­mark­able ODI de­but against Bangladesh, was over­looked, is a head-scratch­er. How in heav­en's name did they come up with that de­ci­sion? Choos­ing a vet­er­an over a promis­ing young tal­ent, es­pe­cial­ly one who of­fers the ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fit of wick­et-keep­ing, is a baf­fling de­ci­sion. Maybe they want­ed to give Fletch­er a fi­nal farewell and this de­ci­sion was per­haps a sen­ti­men­tal nod to Fletch­er’s past con­tri­bu­tions. No doubt Jan­goo’s turn will come. I guess they can’t get every­thing right.

As the West In­dies aims to move its crick­et for­ward, what I would love to see is some for­mer crick­eters be in­clud­ed on the board. With Enoch Lewis be­ing the sole mem­ber to have played first-class crick­et, one won­ders about the depth of crick­et­ing in­sight dur­ing board dis­cus­sions, and if and when a high lev­el of dis­cus­sion on crick­et does come up, I won­der how some of these di­rec­tors cope. The in­clu­sion of for­mer play­ers on the board is not mere­ly de­sir­able, it’s es­sen­tial for in­formed and strate­gic plan­ning. It is time to get some for­mer crick­eters on the board to have se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions on the way for­ward with West In­dies crick­et.

The CWI has made two steps in the right di­rec­tion - Sam­my’s ap­point­ment and Dehring’s as­cen­sion to CEO. At the Test lev­el, I look for­ward to see­ing the changes Sam­my will im­ple­ment and I al­so look for­ward to see­ing what oth­er telling changes will be made by the new CEO. The time for po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring and ‘friend-friend’ is over. It is time for West In­dies crick­et to start turn­ing a page and 2025 must mark a new chap­ter for West In­dies crick­et.

In clos­ing, let me take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­tend my warmest wish­es to all read­ers and their fam­i­lies. May the fes­tive sea­son be filled with joy, peace, and hap­pi­ness.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.