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Murray on CWI: Change everyone now

Fri, Jan 2, '26 at 1:25 AM

Murray on CWI: Change everyone now

Cricket West Indies president Dr. Kishore Shallow is under attack again.

Following former CWI president Dave Cameron, former director Billy Heaven, and former prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, a West Indies cricket legend has added his voice for Shallow to step down as president. But former wicketkeeper and vice-captain Deryck Murray has gone further than the others and called for Shallow and the entire board of directors to step down.

Speaking on the Mason and Guest radio program on Tuesday, the 82-year-old Murray contended that Shallow, who was recently appointed as Minister of Tourism and Maritime Affairs in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, could not hold both positions. “To have the president of Cricket West Indies and a functioning minister of government, especially one who has two portfolios, he cannot do that job.

“So therefore, you need to appeal to him that in leaving, he must work with the president of the CARICOM Sub-Committee and take the Board with him,” Murray said. “The personnel of the Board at the moment has to remove itself peacefully and amicably and allow a change to take place.” He proposed, “We need to agree on an interim committee. Disband the CWI as it currently exists and functions and have...five or six people who are going to work with those three reports (Patterson, Barriteau, and Wehby reports)...that called for governance reform... Those five people on this interim board will run West Indies cricket for the next two years maximum, and they need to put in place by 2028 a new structure.”

Fri, Jan 2, '26 at 1:05 PM

@sgtdjones


The economic reality of West Indies cricket is a bigger hindrance to progress than structure. Jamaica Athletics has the blueprint for small countries to compete on the world stage. Its not perfect but what is?


Fri, Jan 2, '26 at 1:49 PM

@googly1961

Economics is less of a hinderance to WI cricket survival, than greed and corruption.

Fri, Jan 2, '26 at 4:01 PM

@sgtdjones

Murray is 82 WI been in decline for over 30 years what advice could he possibly give???


We need new spokespeople for WI cricket because just like this board all the crotchety old farts know how to do is cuss that’s why the Millennial generation never learned anything from them and we’re in this shituation!!!

Fri, Jan 2, '26 at 9:44 PM

@WIfan26


Just a quick check with Murray being the president of T&TCB, one would see the quality of players produced under his tenure.

Check out players that represented T&T in the Champions League in India.

Daren Ganga (Captain)

Kieron Pollard

Dwayne Bravo

Sunil Narine

Lendl Simmons

Denesh Ramdin

Samuel Badree

Adrian Barath

Darren Bravo

William Perkins

Navin Stewart

Rayad Emrit 

Above developed under D. Murray's leadership.

Now, 20 years under the T&T president and VP of CWI, how many notable players did T&T produce?

Sat, Jan 3, '26 at 6:24 AM

@sgtdjones

booooooom💥

Sat, Jan 3, '26 at 7:56 AM

So many times, people suggest that management of the CWI should be changed, not thinking that the people who might replace the present managers might be worse. So far Shallow and his assistants have shown they are willing to try new methods, which is better than previous managers

Sat, Jan 3, '26 at 8:24 AM

@sgtdjones

That is very interesting but with the exception of the Bravo’s none of them have a Test Career to speak of or a WI career of note and everyone of those players added to the decline as I said the decades before them refused to teach them anything!!!

Sat, Jan 3, '26 at 12:00 PM

@WIfan26

You are showing a lack of knowledge of WICB/CWI administrators and leadership that led to the designation of players to play T20, 50, and Test Cricket. Players didn't pick themselves to play; they were selected.

West Indies cricket did not simply “lose” players to global leagues; it forfeited them through a pattern of governance that treated elite talent as something to manage, not something to build around. The familiar accusation of players as “mercenaries” is emotionally satisfying but analytically weak. It mistakes a predictable response to institutional dysfunction for a moral failing in individuals.

A professional system earns commitment by offering clarity: transparent selection, coherent planning across formats, stable leadership, and credible player relations. Too often, the WICB/CWI environment has offered the opposite, an ecosystem where selection can feel like designation, where players are informally sorted into T20/50/Test “types,” and where those labels harden into ceilings rather than starting points. When a player is categorized before being properly tested, the system stops being meritocratic and starts looking managerial: convenient for administrators, corrosive for trust.

This matters especially for territories like Trinidad & Tobago, where the complaint is not merely that talented players missed out, but that opportunity sometimes appeared contingent, shaped by committee logic, personalities, and territorial politics as much as performance. The real damage of that perception is long-term: once players believe excellence is not the sole currency, they begin to treat West Indies selection as unstable and transactional. You cannot build a serious team culture on instability.

The Kieron Pollard example is instructive not because one quote settles a debate, but because it highlights a contrast. When Richie Benaud remarked that a player of Pollard’s ability would be in Australia’s Test team, he was pointing, intentionally or not, to the difference between systems that integrate exceptional talent and systems that silo it. Strong cricket nations do not simply admire multi-format potential; they actively engineer it with roles, conditioning, and long-term planning. West Indies cricket has too often behaved as though certain forms of excellence, especially white-ball dominance, sit outside the “real” game. That is not a cricketing judgment so much as a cultural hierarchy, and it predictably alienates modern professionals.

The “plantation mentality” critique, stripped of rhetoric, is fundamentally about power: an institution that expects loyalty by default, while resisting the accountability that earns loyalty. Nothing exposes that contradiction more sharply than the uncomfortable reality that administrators could benefit financially from players’ overseas opportunities, through permissions, arrangements, or leverage, while simultaneously condemning those same players for seeking careers beyond a fragile domestic structure. When an organization profits from player mobility yet moralizes against it, the issue is not principle; it is control.

The result is the decline we now debate: not merely fewer available stars, but weakened continuity, diminished standards, and a brand that increasingly struggles to persuade its best athletes that West Indies cricket is the safest place to invest their prime years.

The ask is simple and overdue: stop moralizing and start reforming. Publish clear selection criteria and accountability mechanisms. Integrate format planning so “designation” doesn’t replace development. Professionalize player relations so trust is earned, not demanded. If CWI wants loyalty, it must first build a system worthy of it.

Sarge

Sat, Jan 3, '26 at 5:37 PM

@sgtdjones

thanks, Sarge. I have mentioned a couple times lately that Bassarath never seems to have commented publicly on what is going wrong why TT is unable to challenge seriously for a regional FC title for past 20 years. This is an indictment against his leadership of the local board that he conveniently ignores.

Sun, Jan 4, '26 at 12:14 AM

@PalsofMine

Are you aware that Bassarath was a road worker 2 in Penal working as Dr. Sammy ran the corporation?

Bassarath then nominated two lackeys to represent the T&TCB at the CWI Board of Directors. Dr. Sammy was one.

Did he have any idea what such responsibilities were...? He later learned and became a member of the Board...

Now how did he become president? Two idiots...Ramnarine and Ganga. They wanted Murray out as president. These two dimwits have tried to get rid of Bassarath on numerous occasions and failed.

Rum till I die; voting at the T&TCB will keep one in power. Now he is VP of CWI... Look at all the financial mismanagement at T&TCB under his tenure to date!!!