Bridgetown meeting could be stormy affair THE WEST Indies Cricket Board's regular meeting in Bridgetown tomorrow and Saturday was expected to be a nice, quiet exercise during which such matters as the budget for the coming year and the ICC meeting in London would be discussed. That, however, may not now be the case. A few days ago, team manager Ricky Skerritt was sacked, and with some board members claiming they knew nothing about it, some insisting that they should have been involved in the decision, and some expressing their disappointment in the sacking, that will be the main topic and the meeting may be hot. In fact, it promises to be a stormy confrontation between those in favour and those against. It should not be so, however, and for at least three reasons. One reason is that the decision was made by the executive committee which has the right to make that decision without consulting the board; another is that the contracts signed by the manager and the coach stated their services could be terminated if the team does not win; and based on what is now coming out, yet another is that despite the instances of indiscipline in the team, the manager failed to report any of them. As far as the right to make the decision is concerned, the authority, the power to make a decision like that was given to the executive by the board members themselves a few years ago when they accepted the new structure of a board and an executive committee. They should have known then that they were giving up control of the day to day affairs and thus the administration of West Indies cricket. Apart from setting policies, the control the board now has is the power to replace the members of the executive if they fail to do a good job. Tomorrow's debate, therefore, should not be whether the board members should have been involved in the decision-making, or whether they should have been told of the decision. If there has to be a debate, it should be limited to the justification in the sacking, and if it is true that the manager never once, in any of his reports, reported the indiscipline in the team, then the decision cannot be faulted. As the man in charge of the team, as the man representing the board, the manager is responsible for the team, and if team members are indisciplined it is his duty to deal with the problem. Skerritt, a nice man who believes in protecting his people, may have decided to deal with it his own way, he may have decided not to run to the board with his problems or to report the guilty, and remembering that every man has his own style of doing things and getting things done, nothing is wrong with that. Once the indiscipline continued, however, once he was unable to deal with it, once his way had failed, he should have sought the help of the executive. Although the executive is tight-lipped, and probably rightly so at this time, as to the reason for their decision, it appears that Skerritt was dismissed, not because the team is losing, but because of what many saw as his weakness in dealing with the indisciplined players. A weakness that allowed the players to do whatever they wanted and getting away with it. The politics of West Indies cricket, including the insularity that touches not only team selection, employment and appointments but also divides the board and impacts on decisions, and the politicians who never fail to defend their own, is such that sometimes it matters not what is right and what is wrong. What is in the best interest of West Indies cricket and what is not, but who says what and who does what, who is affected and who is not. Hopefully, the West Indies Board meeting in Bridgetown will not be a clash of personalities with lines drawn, hopefully it will discuss the problems of West Indies cricket fully and in the best interest of West Indies cricket, and hopefully it will appoint a manager based on his ability to do a good job and nothing else.
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