WICB Elections on, But...

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is moving ahead with plans to 'elect' Guyana's Chetram Singh as its new president on Sunday despite a frantic last-minute effort to postpone the vote.

The WICB board of directors huddled all day Saturday at the Fort Young Hotel here, brainstorming an agenda that ranged from the restructuring of the Red Stripe Bowl championship to long-term contracts for elite players but all those issues took a back seat to the behind-the-scenes battle to force a delay of the vote until new nominees can be identified.

A source close to the negotiations said the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) will propose a resolution at Sunday's AGM to postpone the elections and give regional representatives an opportunity to participate in a "transparent" nomination process.

"It's still likely that there will be a resolution to adjourn the vote. Now that Barbados has publicly issued support for the Willie Rodriguez slate, there is room for such a resolution," the source said.

If that resolution isn't passed, the JCA plans to challenge the legitimacy of ballots cast by WICB president Wes hall and vice president Val Banks. "There will be a call for the production of the share register to show that Wes and Val have not paid for their shares and, legally, should not be allowed to vote," the source explained.

The WICB secretary (CFO Barry Thomas is acting in that role) is required to produce the share register and this could make for a sticky situation at the AGM if the JCA can successfully prove that ballots from Hall and Banks aren't credible.

Because there is only one nominee, the JCA/Windwards lobby (with support from Barbados) could call for a vote to show opposition to the Singh presidency.

"We could very well have a situation where it's a 6-6 tie. Things could get very dicey," one source said.

Willie Rodriguez, the Queens' Park Cricket Club (QPCC) president who was nominated by the JCA (and seconded by the Windward Islands), has already pulled out of the race, decrying the scenario by which the WICB's executive committee handpicked Chetram Singh to take over from the departing Wes Hall.

According to published reports, the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), in a 6-4 vote, threw its support behind the slate of Rodriguez and Lennox John, strongly hinting that a close election could be forthcoming tomorrow.

Interestingly, BCA president Stephen Alleyne is a key member of the executive committee that engineered the Chetram Singh candidacy but he won't be casting a vote at the AGM. Barbados' two votes will be cast by Owen Estwick and Jeff Broomes.

The tension mounted on Saturday with former WICB president Pat Rousseau warning that a Chetram Singh presidency would plunge West Indies cricket into a "state of crisis".

"[T]he executive committee of the West Indies Cricket Board is about to plunge West Indies cricket into the worst crisis it has faced and will cause serious long-term damage to our beloved game and to our administration," declared Rousseau, the Jamaican lawyer who quit the board in a hail of controversy two years ago.

"The election of Chetram Singh will cause major damage to the reputation of the WICB leading up to and beyond the 2007 World Cup," Rousseau added, noting that the issue of Singh's bookmaking business being at loggerheads with International Cricket Council (ICC) stipulations means the new WICB chief would be viewed as a "pariah" by the world governing body.

Rousseau, who resigned in June 2001 after his decision to fire team manager Ricky Skerritt was overturned by the directors, urged board members "to vote against the election of Chetram Singh this weekend and achieve a majority vote against his appointment".

Rousseau accused the executive committee of forsaking West Indies cricket to ensure continued control of the WICB.

"Even if some of his colleagues can only see the opportunity to attend the ICC as the fulfilment of their ambitions, Chetram Singh should look beyond them at the bigger picture and do the correct thing by withdrawing as a candidate for the post of president before any election takes place on Saturday. Only by this action will the West Indian fan and history remember him favourably. I appeal to him to do the honourable thing," Rousseau declared.

Separately, the JCA plans to propose a resolution to amend the Articles of Association to expand the controversial Executive Committee (EC). The resolution will call for a change of the Articles to legally block a territory from having two members on the EC.