The regional team has endured a particularly wretched run of form across all formats in recent months. A poor showing at the T20 World Cup saw the two-time champions embarrassingly eliminated in the first round of the competition after loses to Scotland and Ireland.
In the aftermath, Simmons, and, then later team captain Nicholas Pooran, resigned their positions. The Test team then traveled to Australia to face the home team in a two-match series where they were badly outplayed. In the second Test, for instance, the team lost by a massive 419 runs after being bowled out for 77.
In light of such performances, Murray believes there needs to be many more changes at the broader management level than just Simmons, if the team is to truly start moving forward.
“I want to commend Phil Simmons he has done the honourable thing.
He was responsible for the team when we did not qualify for the T20 World cup and he did the hourrable thing,” Murray told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“We should not assume for one minute, however, that one man, Philip Simmons, is responsible for the decline, for the losses of West Indies cricket," he added.
“I keep looking to see others follow suite but nothing like that has happened…”
Murray went on to state that he believed the entire government system surrounding the sport in the region needed to change.
The report that was submitted to the board just over a week ago contained some far-reaching changes that would significantly change the way the board now operates.
The report highlighted the “need to foster the rebuilding of trust and a common purpose between CWI and the other stakeholders, especially with regional governments”.
The recommendations included comprehensive reform of the governance structure using key principles of modern governance to provide greater accountability and transparency and that the membership of the Board of Directors to reflect a wide cross-section of skills and competencies.
The report also recommended a shift to a smaller and more balanced Board of 12 in the immediate instance, with an eventual reducing to nine including at least two women. The CWI board is currently comprised of 18 members.
The roles of the president and vice president are to be redesigned to be more board specific and non-executive. The report also recommended the establishment of a Nominations Committee to identify and evaluate potential directors and to nominate future directors and committee members and that there be a reduction in CWI Committee structure from 12 to five (5) Committees.
“We cannot ignore the fact that this is the fifth external governance review endeavour of its kind, within the past 13 years. However, I am confident that this latest review was conducted by five experienced, skilled and well-intentioned West Indians, each with an unmitigated concern and respect for West Indies cricket in general,” the CWI president said in a letter to stakeholders.
“Together they are more than capable of merging learnings from past reviews with the realities of the present, in order to develop a pertinent and strategic outlook for a preferred future”.
An Independent Task Force led by Senator Don Wehby, which also included Sir Hilary Beckles, Mr Deryck Murray, Mr O.K Melhado and Mr Charles Wilkin QC, prepared the report. The Task Force consulted extensively, and the 36-page report drew from a wide cross-section of expertise – from knowledgeable persons in the West Indies as well as in the global game.
The report is also now available to the public on the CWI Website https://www.windiescricket.com/cricket-west-indies/the-wehby-report-distributed-to-cwi-stakeholders/
Earlier this week regional cricket governing body Cricket West Indies (CWI) announced the decision to replace lead selector Roger Harper and Miles Bascombe, following a disastrous showing at the ICC T20 World Cup earlier this year, and subsequent fruitless tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
For Murray, however, the decisions may not run deep enough in tackling the substance of the issue.
“Yeah, they’re going to change the selectors, but are they going to exchange some for others or is it going to be a real radical change in the way West Indies cricket is run,” Murray queried on the Mason and Guest radio program.
“If our cricket is ever going to improve, the first thing to do is to get the board structure right. The way the board is constituted now, at least three reports have been absolutely clear, The Patterson report, the Caricom Report, and the Wehby report all have said exactly the same thing, the structure, and composition of the West Indies board has to change,” he added.
“The way it’s constructed at the moment, all you are going to get is people vying to get people picked who are their friends or come from the same territories and we’re not going anywhere.”
Fourteen years ago, former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson, Sir Alister McIntyre, and Dr. Ian McDonald produced a Governance Report, which listed 65 recommendations to improve West Indies cricket. At the time, the document was dismissed as not relevant by the then administration. In 2015, a Caricom Governance of Cricket report was submitted by a panel chaired by Professor V Eudine Barriteau, which included former President of the Caribbean Court of Justice Sir Denis Byron, Murray, Warren Smith, and Dwain Gill.
Two years ago, another report, conducted by an independent task force led by former Jamaica Senator Don Wehby, which also included Sir Hilary Beckles, O.K Melhado, Charles Wilkin QC, and Murray, produced 36-pages of recommedations that also pointed to the need for structural reforms. The majority of the recommendations from any of the three documents are yet to be implemented.
The West Indies followed up a gutsy away win over Bangladesh, with a hard-fought T20 series win over Sri Lanka, before putting on a dominant display in a One Day International (ODI) series against the same opponents.
While some may view the results with an air of skepticism, due to what they believe is inferior opposition, Murray was quick to point out that the team’s approach and attitude in recent encounters was just as important as the results and could augur well for the future.
“We are at a stage where West Indies cricket, let’s face facts, is at the bottom of the rung and we have taken the opportunity to beat teams on an equal footing with us or just above us,” Murray told the Mason and Guest radio show.
“What we saw in the One Days against Sri Lanka were people playing to their responsibilities within the team…we saw that in areas of the One Day game where people were called up to bowl at different times, people coming to bowl at the death, etc. People were moving out of their comfort zone and doing what the team needed,” he added.
“Between going from number 9 to number 1 there are going to be obstacles and hiccups along the way. We are not going to beat everybody as we go along but being able to win in tight situations is key, forget whether it was Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. In tight situations, we came out of it winning. Players are going to start believing they can win. So, when we face England, Australia, India, or New Zealand, it’s not going to be us trying to do something as a one-off but let’s get into a situation to give ourselves a chance to win. You are going to start winning more than you are losing.”
The West Indies will now turn their attention to securing victory over Sri Lanka in the two-match Test series, which begins on Sunday.
The 76-year-old former wicketkeeper played 88 matches in 10 years for what is generally referred to as the ‘all-conquering’ West Indies squad. The team proved themselves to be the best in the world after capturing back-to-back ICC World Cup titles with wins over Australia and England at the 1975 and 1979 editions.
For the current crop, however, those glory days have long faded. The team has captured two world titles of its own in the freshly minted T20 format, but when it comes to the traditional ODI and Test formats, they have for the most part lost far more often than they have won.
Murray believes a part of the team’s recent failures is down to losing the significance of what it means to be on the pitch for the West Indies and the passion required to succeed.
“I’d love to give them an understanding of what it really means to represent the West Indies. I think that is something that would be difficult to assimilate without the kind of mentorship that I had and I’m sure a number of youngsters coming into the team in my era had,” Murray told Barbados radio show, Mason and Guest, recently.
“I think now people talk about cricket as a job, you have to be professional. You have to do this you have to do that. You have to hit a 100 balls in practice. That’s not what international cricket is about. International cricket is about the desire to play a Test match, to win a Test match, to win a Test series,” he added.
“It has nothing to do with how much you get paid or how much the coach gets paid or whatever. It’s about wanting to do something, and you want to do it and go out and train. Because you train for 35 minutes a day you recognize you really could train 40 minutes and it won’t hurt me. When you do 40 minutes you think I can do an hour and you keep going.”
“…You need to get into the passion for what it is that you are doing and how you are doing it. You need to believe that there is a meritocracy and feel that if you are the best the coaches and selectors will pick you…it’s as much as about the psychological game as much as the actual technique of batting and bowling.”
Brathwaite, who took charge of the regional squad after Holder and several others opted out of the tour, after citing health and safety concerns, has widely been credited for unifying the team under difficult circumstances.
Holder, on the other hand, has had a difficult spell in charge over the last several months with lopsided losses to England and New Zealand. Albeit triumphing against more lowly ranked opposition, Murray believes Brathwaite was able to pull exceptional performances out of the squad and is in favour of keeping momentum.
“It is something that you have to talk about very seriously. I do not discard Kraigg Brathwaite as Test captain automatically,” Murray told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“You need to look at the team that we are going to put together, and if it is that there is going to be four or five players from this (Bangladesh tour) team there is a strong case for doing that (retaining Brathwaite),” he added.
“There is a strong case for saying to Jason Holder ‘come back, don’t have the pressures of captaincy on you. You are going to be the central all-rounder in this team. You are going to bat at six, we need you to attack as a bowler, be a wicket-taking bowler, not a containing bowler as the fourth seamer in the team, and therefore we need to have the best available team at that time.”
“The team who is coming with the confidence of just being successful. Rallying around the team that we are going to build for the next three or four months because we have two or three series coming up in quick succession. We have to make sure we are doing that and that we don’t suddenly say ‘yep these players have done it but we are not putting too much emphasis on that.”
The Report recognised the enormous cricket talent in the region and the need to harness that talent and promote its growth and presented the way in which improved governance will contribute to the process.
The Task Force also conducted case studies of cricket governance models among major cricket nations and considered it important, in the exercise of their mandate, to highlight those principles of modern corporate governance, which in their opinion, should apply to the Board of Directors of CWI as a corporate entity carrying out a public function.
The objectives of the Governance Task Force included the need to undertake a review of the corporate governance framework, standards and practices of CWI and to recommend changes “to enhance stakeholder trust and ensure more transparency and accountability in line with modern best practices for corporate governance.
The objectives also included reviewing the roles of president and vice president, the structure and role of CWI’s Board of Directors and the committee framework of the Board of Directors.
Overall, the report noted that reform was needed to ensure the sustainability of CWI, highlighting the “need to foster the rebuilding of trust and a common purpose between CWI and the other stakeholders, especially with regional governments”.
Also among their recommendations were the comprehensive reform of the governance structure using key principles of modern governance to provide greater accountability and transparency. They also recommended that the membership of the Board of Directors reflect a wide cross-section of skills and competencies, and a smaller and more balanced Board of 12 (currently 18) in the immediate instance, with an eventual reducing to nine including at least two women.
Other key recommendations also included the redefining of the roles of president and vice president to be more Board specific and non-executive as well as the establishment of a nominations committee to identify and evaluate potential directors and to nominate future directors and committee members.
The reduction in CWI Committee structure from 12 to five (5) Committees was also recommended.
Jamaican Senator Don Wehby headed the Task Force, which also included Sir Hilary Beckles, Mr Deryck Murray, Mr O.K Melhado and Mr Charles Wilkin QC. The Task Force consulted extensively within CWI, the region and internationally; and the 36-page report drew from a wide cross-section of expertise – from knowledgeable stakeholders in the West Indies as well as in the global game.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of my Task Force for their selfless dedication to the completion of this project, over the past year. Their time, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has made the finalisation of this report a reality. We would also like to commend CWI President Ricky Skerritt and his Board of Directors for seeing the need for governance reform and giving us the opportunity to make a contribution to the sport we love, and for which we wish the utmost best,” said Wehby.
“Our Task Force has met formally 16 times over the period and we have spent many hours preparing the report submitted (the Wehby Report). We are positive that, if implemented, the recommendations of the Wehby Report will improve the governance of CWI and result in positive effects on team performance.
“The principal roles and responsibilities of the Board are organisational and financial planning and reporting, decisions on investments and capital projects, preserving the assets of the company, establishing policy, selecting the executive, general oversight of the executive and exercising other powers given to it by the constituent documents of the company. The membership of the Board should reflect a wide cross-section of the skills and competencies required for carrying out its roles and responsibilities.”
CWI President Skerritt said reform was key to the success of West Indies cricket and was the basis for their campaign that led to victory in the CWI elections of March 2019.
“Governance reform is one of the important promises Vice President Kishore Shallow and myself made prior to our election last year. When all is said and done, we expect that the Wehby Report will be seriously considered by the Directors and member representatives,” Skerritt said.
“The task force and stakeholders can be assured that we will do all we can to ensure the implementation of this report.”
