In a can­did and ex­clu­sive in­ter­view on lo­cal ra­dio sta­tion i95.5FM’s Is­ports pro­gramme with host An­dre Er­rol Bap­tiste on Sat­ur­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go's Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley, Chair­man of the CARI­COM sub­com­mit­tee on crick­et, laid bare the chal­lenges and am­bi­tions sur­round­ing West In­dies crick­et as the re­gion gets ready to wel­come a new year and pos­si­ble new chal­lenges fac­ing the re­gion's beloved sport.

Dr. Row­ley re­vealed that CARI­COM, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), has been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to try and im­ple­ment a work­ing so­lu­tion to plans that have been tabled in the past that were de­signed to re­vive the glo­ry days of West In­dies crick­et.

How­ev­er, the ini­tia­tive has faced sig­nif­i­cant set­backs, with Bar­ba­dos and Guyana fail­ing to at­tend the most re­cent meet­ing, lead­ing to a lack of quo­rum.

De­spite frus­tra­tions, PM Row­ley em­pha­sised that CARI­COM does not seek to run West In­dies crick­et but re­lies on moral sua­sion to dri­ve change.

He said, “We want to en­cour­age peo­ple in this pe­ri­od of the great risk and pos­si­bly good re­wards that we get to the ta­ble, take the avail­able as­sis­tance, and work as one body be­cause no­body is go­ing to re­spect West In­dies crick­et be­cause we are frac­tured at the man­age­ment lev­el. But if we are one sol­id body talk­ing to the ICC and talk­ing to our­selves, then we can do what is re­quired to im­prove the game.”

Ad­dress­ing re­cent spec­u­la­tion about the dis­so­lu­tion of West In­dies crick­et, Dr. Row­ley dis­missed the claims as “rub­bish.” He ac­cused de­trac­tors of at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine the re­gion’s crick­et lega­cy.

PM Row­ley ex­plained, “The West In­dies as a team is a unique en­ti­ty in world crick­et, and the fact that we have dom­i­nat­ed the game for two decades should in­di­cate that the mod­el does work. The West In­dies has played a role, and we have paid our dues. We need to be treat­ed with more re­spect and have more re­sources from the ICC so that we can get those re­sources to bring our game in­to line with what is re­quired in to­day’s sport.”

Dr Row­ley turned his at­ten­tion to re­cent de­ci­sions by Crick­et West In­dies and the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL), which he be­lieves have mar­gin­al­ized CARI­COM’s in­put. He specif­i­cal­ly high­light­ed the ab­sence of CARI­COM rep­re­sen­ta­tives at re­cent CPL meet­ings, sug­gest­ing a lack of col­lab­o­ra­tion and trans­paren­cy.

Look­ing ahead, Dr. Row­ley re­vealed that the next CARI­COM-CWI meet­ing is sched­uled to take place in Bar­ba­dos and that more fruit­ful de­vel­op­ments will come to the fore in a bid to aid the re­gion­al game.

(CMC)