Editorial | CWI’s honour to Wehby

If Cricket West Indies (CWI) is seriously intending to honour the memory of Don Wehby – as its president, Kishore Shallow, says it is – it must urgently provide a timetable for a radical overhaul of its governance structures.

This restructuring must be founded in the proposals of the Patterson Committee and Wehby Task Force and guaranteed by a binding agreement between CWI’s board and the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket.

In other words, Dr Shallow cannot merely say nice words now, then dither while West Indies cricket enters a new phase of its long, downward spiral.

Dr Wehby, 62, the former CEO of the Jamaican conglomerate GraceKennedy died on Saturday, July 26 and has been widely hailed in Jamaica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean, for his leadership in business and contribution to sport. He was, for instance, an independent director of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), the predecessor to CWI, between 2013 and 2017, and author of the 2016 Wehby Report and the management of the game in the region.

The Wehby Repor t followed a review a dozen years earlier by a high-powered, three-member committee chaired by the former Jamaican prime minister, P.J. Patterson.

These and other reviews of West Indies cricket are a consequence of a continuing three-decade decline of the West Indies team, after its unrivalled dominance of the 1970s and ’80s. The West Indian fall reached a new low earlier this month when a team was bowled out for a measly 27 runs in the second innings in a Test match, the second- lowest in the history of Tests, to give Australia a whitewash in their three-Test series. The Australians have already won four of the five games in their T20 series, the shortest version of the international game.

This latest humiliation, and the recriminations that followed, sent CWI on a frantic search for answers, including proposing an emergency summit of its technical staff and former players to find a way out of the rut.

BOUND BY DUTY, GRATITUDE

It was against this backdrop that Mr Wehby died, placing even greater spotlight on his report, in which he appeared to attempt to find a compromise between what CWI might tolerate and the more radical reforms proposed by the Patterson Committee, which included Alister McIntyre, a former CARICOM secretary general and vice-chancellor of The University of the West Indies, and Ian McDonald, a Guyanese executive and Caribbean man of letters.

“Through his authorship of the Wehby Report, and his unwavering commitment to good governance, Don challenged us to be better, to lead with integrity, and to serve with purpose,” Dr Shallow, CWI president, said in a statement.

He added: “While we have made meaningful strides in implementing his vision, we are now bound by duty and gratitude to complete the journey he began. West Indies cricket is stronger because Don Wehby cared, and we honour his memory best by continuing the work with the same clarity, humility, and resolve he so graciously embodied.”

In the eight years since the Wehby Report, CWI managed to implement term limits for its president – a maximum of three three-year terms. The term was extended by a year, from two years.

FAILED TO IMPLEMENT

But while CWI has crowed about this move and its strengthening of internal organisational systems, it failed to implement the key Wehby proposals of removing the president from an executive role and introducing a business-style chairman of the board; and decreasing the number of directors by halving to six, those nominated by territorial associations and ceding their places to ‘independent’ members.

Neither has CWI implemented the recommendation for a Stakeholders’ Council, an advisory body whose members would come from a raft of regional institutions, including cricket-related organisations, CARICOM, the media, business and higher education.

The Wehby Report’s recommendation for the Stakeholders’ Council was a seeming nod to the proposal of the deeper and more wide-ranging Patterson Report for a Cricket West Indies Council, whose 23 members would meet annually to review the state of West Indies cricket and its management, and to set strategic goals.

The council would also appoint the president and vice-president of CWI and executive directors, other than those appointed by territorial boards. Additionally, CWI would be transformed into a limited liability listed on a regional stock exchange.

The only thing that the cricketing authorities adopted from the Patterson Report was the change of the name of WICB to Cricket West Indies.

There is much in the Patterson Report that remains relevant, as is the case with the Wehby Report. The circumstances seemed aligned for them to be appropriately culled and seriously implemented. That would be worthy of Don Wehby’s memory.