By Brandon Corlette
Cricket West Indies (CWI) recently confirmed the international retainer contracts for the West Indies Men’s Team for the 2021-2022 season. During that groundbreaking confirmation, which saw no Guyanese beiang offered a contract 18 players were offered contracts for the upcoming 2021-22 season, which runs from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.
CWI Vice-President Dr Kishore Shallow, speaking virtually on the Mason and Guest radio programme on Tuesday, said CWI is exploring an improved system for awarding contracts for the next season.
Bissoondyal Singh
“I would say that we are looking at the system to award grades for these contracts. I expect that by next contractual period we will have an improved system in terms of how we award these contracts,” Dr Shallow explained.
“The Director of Cricket, Jimmy Adams, myself and others have been involved in that process over the last few months, and we have been working with WIPA (West Indies Players Association) who want to ensure we have a level playing field both from CWI side and the players’ side, so we are looking at improving the rubric system,” Shallow added.
In Guyanese parlance, one may say, “Pressure buss pipe” after CWI opted to explore and improve the contractual system. On Monday last, the Bissoondyal Singh-led Guyana Cricket Board (GCB), in a release, expressed disappointment with the responses from Chairman of Selectors, the popular Roger Harper.
According to the GCB’s statement: “We write to you (CWI) with great astonishment and much disappointment on the media statements by the Chairman of Selectors of the CWI as they relate to the issue of the non-retainer by CWI of male Guyanese cricketers. We at GCB thought that we were doing the proper and decent thing by first writing to CWI requesting the criteria which was used for the retention and/or non-retention of our male cricketers, prior to making any public statements on their non-retention.”
The GCB release further disclosed: “It is most unfortunate and quite disappointing that while we are still patiently awaiting the submission of the said criteria, the Chairman of Selectors thought it best, whether on his own accord or with the support of the CWI, to make the comments in the media that two of our Directors were present at the meeting when the matter of retention and/or non-retention was discussed. Of all persons, the Chairman of Selectors ought to have been aware that there was no “handing over of the mantle” to the current Directors of GCB by the two former Directors.
“Further, it was the first meeting of the CWI that the two new Directors attended, and the issue of the retention of the players was more in the form of a report after the decision was already made.”
According to the GCB, the two Directors, in Singh and Hilbert Foster, could not have commented and/or usefully participated in the “report” in relation to the retention of the players without the two Directors knowing or being fully apprised of the selection and/or non-selection criteria.
