LETTER: St. Vincent PM writes to Chairman of Selectors over Sammy’s sacking

Mr. Courtney Browne
Chairman of Selectors
West Indies Cricket Board
Barbados
PRESS RELEASE
Mr. Darren Sammy, the distinguished West Indian cricketer, has advised me that, in your capacity as Chairman of the Selectors of the West Indies Cricket Team, you peremptorily informed him in a 30 second telephone conversation that he was being removed as the Captain of the West Indies T-20 Team and that his recent performances did not merit him a place on the team for the upcoming T-20 matches against the touring Indian Team.

I find this shabby treatment of Mr. Sammy to be unacceptable; indeed, I am sure that all right-thinking persons are extremely dissatisfied at your unceremonious and summary dismissal of Mr. Sammy as Captain and player. You simply cannot treat a former captain of the West Indies Test Team and a successful captain of two successive World Cup T-20 Championships with such disdain! Further, your sacking of Mr. Sammy, and the manner of his termination, on the eve of a Test Match in Mr. Sammy’s country, St. Lucia, to be played at the stadium which bears his name, display breathtaking insensitivity.

Elemental respect and common decency demand that once the Selectors had decided to remove Mr. Sammy as Captain and as player of the T-20 team, he ought to have been accorded the courtesy of a dignified face-to-face meeting with you, and his support enlisted for the transitioning to the new captain. Does the leadership of the West Indies Cricket Board or Chairman of Selectors have no sense of professionalism or any inkling of what is right or wrong in professional/industrial relations?

The issue at hand relates not so much to the decision to remove Mr. Sammy as captain and player ___ though us a cricket fan I question it ___ but to your “modus operandi” and that of the West Indies Cricket Board.

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I have followed your cricketing career with great interest and admiration. I have always considered you to be a splendid son of our Caribbean civilisation. In fact I was pleased at your elevation to the position of Chairman of Selectors. But you have disappointed me deeply. I hope that you are not being unduly influenced by those whose leadership is akin to the proverbial plantation supervisor, in a brown cork hat, perched on a horse ___ a high horse ___ seeking pitiable revenge against someone on
account of some imagined transgression against “massa”.

It is not too late to make amends. To begin with, you and/or the President of the West Indies Cricket Board ought to apologise to Mr. Sammy and the people of the Caribbean for your handling of this matter. Secondly, you and the President ought humbly to request that Mr. Sammy assist the T-20 Team, in their preparation for the imminent matches against India in Florida. Thirdly, if Mr. Sammy consents, that he be accorded a role in shaping and massaging the transition to the new leadership and in facilitating renewal. Noble deeds are now required by the leadership of the West Indies Cricket Board and Selectors to make manifest the possession of a redemptive grace.

All the best to you, your family and West Indies cricket. You are in my prayers. I am available to speak to you on this matter should you be inclined so to do.

Sincerely yours.
Dr. The Hon. Ralph E. Gonsalves
Prime Minister