'Caricom not doing enough to support Windies cricket'

The vice president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Emmanuel Nanthan has said the regional governments are not doing enough to support the development of cricket in the region.

Nanthan's declaration comes as the Dave Cameron-led WICB and Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) appear to remain at loggerheads over a recommendation calling for the dissolution of the board by a review panel set up by Caricom and the WICB, reports CMC.

The WICB appears to be preparing for a legal battle with Caricom to resist the recommendations of the review panel by hiring Dominican lawyer Anthony Astaphan.

Nanthan is insisting that the problems with West Indies cricket have little to do with WICB's governance but a lack of resources from regional governments to fund training.

"It costs the WICB about one million US dollars to train a cricketer from the Under-15 level to the elite level in international cricket," said Nanthan, a sports administrator for the past 20 years, on Tuesday.

A recent meeting in Grenada between Caricom prime ministers and a WICB delegation to discuss the panel's governance report made little progress except for an agreement for future meetings.

WICB's defiance appears to have been fired-up following a subsequent board meeting in St. Lucia, which also discussed the governance report.

"Did the academics look into this? Are the nation states encouraging cricket in the communities," asked Nanthan.

"I say all this so you can understand the costs of the opportunity, which you have been offered through the opportunity of the Professional Cricket League".

The WICB vice president added: "Early education in sports in schools is the responsibility of the State. The responsibility of training to achieve successful performance and results for national teams in regional and international sports is the responsibility of the governments."

The governance report, compiled by a five member panel, also called for the appointment of an interim board to run the sports until a new structure is put in place.

Nanthan says WICB is prepared to make amendments but stressed that only shareholder territories can legally dissolve the ruling body.

"We are prepared to make some changes as we did following previous governance reports," he said on Tuesday.

"However, on the basis of a corporate review and legal advice, only the shareholders of the WICB can dissolve the Company - the WICB. And similarly only shareholders can appoint new directors to the Board, whether they are independent or shareholder directors."