WICB Must Wash Hands of Canada Mess

There is a lot of stumbling and bumbling among the administrators of cricket in Canada and, unsurprising, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has found itself part and parcel of the mess.

And, with a realistic threat of litigation in the air, the regional body must immediately rid itself from any dealings with the Canada Cricket Association (CCA) until it can prove to be a reliable partner.

Reverend Wes Hall is a very smart, media-savvy administrator. If he has his ears to the ground (and we believe he does), the good Reverend would know that his underhand involvement in the sudden firing on Canada's coach just months before the World Cup tournament is likely to backfire in everyone's face.

More and more, we get the sense the WICB enjoys rolling in the public relations mud. Surely, when the WICB and the CCA made the wink-and-look-the-other-way deal to bring in Gus Logie to replace the fired Jeff Thomas, a coach that is/was beloved by his players, they all had to know it would stir a major controversy in the Great White North.

And now that the Canadian media is refusing to let the story die, and Thomas' own plans to sue for wrongful dismissal, the whole episode is just getting nastier by the day.

Let's examine some basic facts in this fiasco:

December 6: Word leaks out that West Indies youth coach Gus Logie would coach the Canadian team in the World Cup. Logie confirms this in the Trinidad Express.

• December 10:

  CCA president Geoff Edwards is caught napping, refusing to discuss the firing of the team coach and telling the media in Canada he won't comment. "At the moment we're not making any comments at all...We will probably be putting out a media release in a day or two." Asked if Thomas was still coach, Edwards reiterated: "We're not making any comment."

• December 11:

  Logie again confirms his hiring and express surprise that Thomas was fired. Again, the CCA president is refusing to clear the air. Further, he says of Thomas. "All I can tell you is that I was not sure whether Jeff would be able to serve at another level of the game."

• December 17:

  The ICC puts up US$250,000 to pay Thomas to stay on in an interim capacity until the coaching dispute is resolved. ICC's development manager Andrew Eade said he was "surprised" the CCA terminated Thomas and hired Logie "without first informing us." The utterly clueless Geoff Edwards, the supposed president of the CCA, had this to say: "What team (is Thomas coaching) anyway? There is no national team. There are six players in Toronto and maybe three or four at the sessions at any one time. "I don't know anything about it (Thomas coaching) and I have no comment to make. I don't know who appointed him to do that or selected him to do it."

There, that's the man Wes Hall and company are doing business with. A man so lost in the ways of his own organisation that he has no clue who is taking care of his team two month's before its biggest accomplishment in 24 years. If Edwards' "What team?" statement isn't an indictment of his own legitimacy as a competent administrator, nothing is.

What is the WICB getting out of the underhand Edwards deal? This is a legitimate question when the fact that our own West Indies 'B' team will be participating in the regional four-day competition at the same time the board is paying to send Logie to coach Canada in the same World Cup group against the senior West Indies team.

Is the plan is to help Logie get his feet wet at the highest level as preparation for his eventual elevation to senior coach (the strong rumour is that Logie will replace Roger Harper)? If this is the plan, why does the WICB see the need to use the Canadians to further this plan? Won't it be practical to name Logie a specialist (batting) coach for the senior team for the World Cup and work with the actual West Indies team?

With the emphasis on youth in the Caribbean, won't it make more sense to have Logie (and his spanking new two-year contract) work at home with the West Indies 'B' team, which will essentially be an Under-23 team next year?

The World Cup will open up on February 9 with three West Indian coaches working with three different teams. All three West Indian coaches are supposed to be an integral part of the development of cricket in the West Indies. Is something not wrong here? Gordon Greenidge, as a West Indies senior team selector, will be coaching the Bangladeshis (that's a conflict-of-interest argument for another time) and Logie will be coaching Canada. Where does it end?

There are numerous legitimate questions floating in the air. And it starts and ends with the wink-eye deal between the WICB and the CCA.

The WICB is best advised to cut ties with the Geoff Edwards administration, wash its hands of the CCA mess and, at the very least, withdraw the offer of Logie as Canada's team coach.

It owes this to no one but itself.