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It’s A Boys Club: Sir Andy Calls For Inclusion Of More Former Players On CWI’s Board of Directors

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Dr Sir Andy Roberts is one of four knighted former cricketers in Antigua.

By Neto Baptiste

Former West Indies fast bowler and the first Antiguan to play for the regional squad, Dr Sir Andy Roberts, has labelled Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) Board of Directors a ‘boys club’ while calling for more former players who are equipped with the knowledge to improve the standard of the game in the region, to be considered.

Sir Andy, who celebrated his 74th birthday on January 29, made the suggestion while speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, suggesting that CWI is in the business of cricket and that many of its directors have never played the game at the highest level.

“We are all saddened to see the state of the cricket and realize that better could have been done if we had more First Class or Test cricketers as board of directors instead of business people who say they are in business but nobody know what business some of them are into but we know they are not in the business of bringing West Indies cricket to the forefront. There are too much friendships, it’s a boys club and not a cricket administration,” he said. 

Touted as one of the most feared fast bowlers of all time, Sir Andy further suggested that directors are chosen based on association rather than ability, revealing that he had made suggestions to a former president of the game’s regional body to revamp the selection process.

“The directors are chosen by the people in the territories who like them so a lot of them are not chosen because of their ability to administer cricket, and no cricket [have not played the game]. Years ago, I had the discussion with Pat [Patrick] Rousseau [former president of Cricket West Indies] and I said to Pat Rousseau that when the territories are choosing directors, they need to have one business administrator and one cricket administrator. So you don’t need to have a cricket committee because your cricket committee would operate from within so you would have your business and you would have your cricket. Also, you don’t need 14 or 16 directors, it should only be one director per territory,” he said.

When asked about the recent decision to appoint former captain Daren Sammy head coach across all formats, Sir Andy voiced his disapproval.

“Because of how it’s being played now, I am not in favour of any one person coaching all three formats and I am not in favour of them having scouts because it is going to be one person who still picks the team anyway and that one person could pick a team and never see half of the team play. He could be somewhere in the world with one of the formats while a competition is being played here in the Caribbean and he does not have the opportunity to see anybody who plays,” he said.

A member of the team that won both the 1975 and the 1979 Cricket World Cup, the Antiguan formed part of the “quartet” of West Indian fast bowlers from the mid-70s to the early 80s with the others being Michael Holding, Joel Garner, and Colin Croft that had such a devastating effect on opposition batsmen at both Test and One Day International level.

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