'Insularity rife in WI cricket' By Tony Becca,
Senior Sport Editor
WEST INDIES cricket is riddled with insularity, Pat Rousseau said yesterday, five days after stepping down as president of the West Indies Cricket Board. Rousseau and vice-president Clarvis Joseph resigned their posts on Saturday after the board overturned their decision to fire team manager Ricky Skerritt. "Regrets? Not really," said Rousseau of his five-year tenure at the helm of the WICB, declaring that he was satisfied he had achieved most of the goals he had set himself. "I think I have tried to do things in the best interest of West Indies cricket. There may have been disagreements over some of the approaches, but that is to be expected and I have no quarrel with anybody over that," Rousseau said. "You are going to have differences. I am a pusher who likes to get things done quickly, and one of my great frustrations in the first three years was trying to get people to focus on performance. "West Indies cricket is riddled with insularity, almost every one wants to treat it like an old boys club. "In the interest of West Indies cricket I tried to change that attitude and because of the systems put in place during my time, because of the evaluation exercise now in place, because people are now accountable, there are no more jobs for the boys. "We now have interviews for positions like managers and selectors and there is a formal evaluation. That has been going for two, three years now, and that is what started causing some of the pressure." Of his abrupt resignation, Rousseau said he suspected he had been undermined by a bloc of members on the board. "I have a feeling that it was orchestrated by those who wanted me out last year and that there was an alliance," he said. "Looking back, however, in the transition, there probably was some of that feeling (of insularity). Some of us were pushing the changes aggressively. It was a big change, and they probably felt we were moving too fast and sometimes doing things without consulting them. "Some of that was because of the new structure, and I am not sure that some of the members understand the impact of the restructuring. Based on the new structure we believed we had the authority (to fire Skerritt), but some of them did not and that was the problem. It is obvious now that they wanted to pass everything as a specific resolution, but that is not something I am accustomed to at Corporate Board meetings. "Some will say that the West Indies Board is not a Corporate Board and maybe they are right, but certainly we have had more board meetings than has been the norm. "What is important is that if you are going to run the thing efficiently, you have to find a system of working between the president and the CEO where action is accepted by the board. "What they are talking about is a technicality. Should we technically have gone to the executive committee for confirmation, because to look at Clarvis and I and the CEO and say you can't evaluate and determine whether a person can be dismissed is the part that I find strange. "In the past you had to deal with the board on everything, but that was unwieldy, that was the reason for the restructuring, and going forward from today you have no choice but to have some kind of committee to deal with these appointments and removals. It can't be done by the board. "I took the line that the CEO should be able to evaluate and determine most of the posts and terminate them if necessary. As a board, you can't second guess the management."
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