WICB is dysfunctional, untrustworthy: Holding

Pace legend Michael Holding has slammed the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), terming it as “dysfunctional” and “untrustworthy” and called for immediate changes in the board to avoid further deterioration.

“As for the state of West Indies cricket, that will only get worse as long as this current crop of board members remains there and the structure and culture remains the same,” Holding said on Wednesday. “You cannot have a healthy, productive, employee workforce while the employer is dysfunctional, untrustworthy and not liked by the employees.”

Even as West Indies suffered an innings and 212 run defeat against Australia at Hobart, the directors of WICB showed defiance at their quarterly meeting in St Lucia on Saturday. Caribbean Community (CARICOM) had labelled the governance structure of the WICB as “antiquated”, “obsolete” and “anachronistic” and called for immediate dissolution of the board in its report. But Caribbean legal figure Anthony Astaphan, whose services was seeked as an advisor to discuss the review by CARICOM’s cricket sub-committee, said in a WICB release that the way forward “will look at how both organisations can work together for the benefit of the improvement of cricket on and off and the field”.

The stormy relationship between the board and players have seen the game suffer and last year they were slapped with a USD 42 million-dollar lawsuit by the BCCI for the Caribbean team’s decision to midway abandon a tour of India.