Grenada PM slams WICB for 'disrespect'

Roseau: Grenada’s Prime Minister Keith Mitchell has slammed what he called an "amazing level of disrespect" on the part of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Dave Cameron, as pressure continued to mount on the beleaguered cricket body to urgently hold a meeting over a review report.

WICB is under intense pressure to meet with Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) leaders over the Governance Review Panel report, reports CMC.

Mitchell, the chairman of CARICOM’s Cricket Governance Committee, stopped short of issuing an ultimatum to the WICB but urged Cameron to rethink his decision not to accommodate a meeting with the regional heads before the Board of Directors meeting on December 12 in St Lucia.

Cameron has been adamant about WICB’s inability to accommodate the Caribbean leaders prior to the already scheduled meeting and reiterated this position in written communication to CARICOM Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque recently.

“It is quite amazing the level of disrespect. The level of lack of understanding of the importance of this is quite frightening and I don’t think I should hold back any words,” Mitchell said on Thursday.

“I expect the president of the West Indies Cricket Board to respect the leadership of the Caribbean, the leadership of the people of the region and to give effect to an urgent meeting."

“We expect no less and I hope and pray what we saw was a rush of blood and not his (Cameron) real intentions. So I expect to see a meeting very, very soon between the leadership and we are waiting for that answer to meet quickly to move cricket forward in the region.”

The salvo from the veteran Caribbean leader is the latest in the standoff between WICB and CARICOM, following the release of the Governance Review Panel report earlier this month.

Chaired by UWI Cave Hill Campus principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, the panel had as its main recommendation the “immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board and the appointment of an interim board whose structure and composition would be radically different from the now proven, obsolete governance framework.”