By Ravi Madholall
Newly installed Cricket West Indies president Ricky Skerritt apparently ready to start bowl the ball as he sets to have a riveting engagement on Thursday in Antigua and Barbuda with the Media.
Skerritt, who trounced incumbent leader Dave Cameron recently 8-4, will have the CEO Johnny Grave and Director of Cricket Jimmy Adams alongside him. Some of the mains topics to be discussed are: to revamp the Selection Policy, about the status of head coach Richard Pybus among others. Skerritt, who served as manager of the men’s senior team for a lengthy period, had expressed profound interest in running the affairs of cricket in the region and keenly demonstrated in his campaign that he will take up great responsibility at the helm to ensure CWI reaches back to dominance.
After his nomination, the Kittians received tremendous support too from former legendary West Indian players Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Andy Roberts just to name a few. Notably, he was backed vehemently by several Caricom leaders as well, who were dying to see a change at the top of the hierarchy of CWI.
In addition, two-time successful T20 CWI skipper Darren Sammy had also thrown his support to Skerritt. Sammy had a series of problems with Cameron during his time of captaining the regional sides in all three formats. Meanwhile, another ex-CWI player Michael Holding stated that he believes that the structure of CWI needs to be changed.
According to Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, Holding felt that his Jamaican compatriot Cameron didn’t do enough to help the game, and wants to see progress now but Skerritt has a huge task ahead.
“We need to analyze things before we have a knee-jerk reaction and change things. The president (Skerritt) and vice-president (Dr Kishore Shallow) need to sit down with everybody at various times. You need to sit down with the players and ask ‘what do you think?’ Have a frank discussion with them and if they are happy to continue with the way things are because they are the ones who will be affected,” Holding, who appeared in 60 tests and claimed 249 wickets with an economy rate 2.79, divulged.
Pybus, whose stint as coach was expected to end when India tour the Caribbean July/August, is facing the axe before a colossal 50-over World Cup assignment that is imminent.