AS West Indians are struggling to move up the ladder, there is a keen contest for the leadership of Cricket West Indies (CWI). Elections will be held on Sunday, March 28 and the incumbent Ricky Skerrit of St. Kitts and Kishore Shallow of St Vincent are being challenged by Anand Sanarsie of Guyana and Calvin Hope of Barbados for the presidency and vice presidency respectively after serving only one term — two years. The incumbent replaced Dave Cameron of Jamaica and Emanuel Nathan who served for six years. Cameron took over from Julian Hunte of St Lucia, who also served six years. Sanarsie the challenger for presidency served for seven years as director of CWI, chairman of the Umpires and Match Referee sub-committee, and several years as Secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board, and President of the West Demerara Cricket Association and founder of Jaguar Cricket Academy. He is said to be a “go getter”. Over the years, he had done a fantastic job in promoting cricket in Guyana; hence, the reason why Guyana is the top team in all formats of the game. Hope is a former Barbados youth cricketer and is an attorney by profession. A few days ago, former CWI President, Dave Cameron endorsed Sanarsie, who he said will bring new visionary leadership to the cricketing Body. Unfortunately, he said “Skerrit has failed to deliver the kind of leadership we hoped to see.” Moreover, he added that Guyana and Barbados are leading cricket nations. Skerrit was a minister of the St. Kitts Government and holds a first degree from the University of the Virgin Islands and a Masters Degree from Oxford University.
Guyana has produced several world class cricketers like Rohan Kanhai, Clive Lloyd, Lance Gibbs and outstanding captains like Lloyd, whose remarkable leadership contributed in the Caribbean team winning the first two world cup tournaments in 1975 and 1979. Unfortunately, although the Co-operative Republic boasts of dozens of test cricketers, the country never had a Guyanese President of the regional board since independence. Research shows that John St Felix Dare served as the West Indies Cricket Board of Control President from 1960-1965. I think he was the Managing Director of Fogarty. Chetram Singh, who served two decades as President of the Guyana Cricket Board was nominated to be the President of WICB, but withdrew his candidacy over displeasure because he served as Head of a Racing Company. It is high time that a Guyanese be elected to be at the helm after Independence. The West Indies Cricket Board of Control was established in 1920, the name was changed to West Indies Cricket Board… the words ‘of Control’ were removed and in November 2015 it was renamed Cricket West Indies (CWI). There are six members of the CWI, namely Barbados Cricket Association, Guyana Cricket Board, Jamaica Cricket Association, Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board, Leeward Islands Cricket Association and Windward Cricket Board.
