COME OUT THE CRICKET
Ex-CWI boss Cameron: Let India play themselves if they can’t share
Dave Cameron is skeptical about how West Indies cricket can get out of its current financial crisis. And the former president of Cricket West Indies is not against the Caribbean team withdrawing from international cricket to make a point. Cameron made the comments on the Mason and Guest radio show in Barbados on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the world governing body ICC agreed a US$12,.82 million loan to CWI. Cameron said, such a loan from the ICC was not a new arrangement and had happened “multiple times.” But he said the current circumstances of CWI made recovery more complicated.
CWI recently announced a series of cost-cutting measures because of its current cash-flow problems, including a 25% cut in the salaries of contracted international players and the reduction of the contracts of franchise players to seven months and the pausing of the regional Men’s Super50 tournament and the Women’s T20 Blaze series.
“There are two mistakes we made, and I said if I had the opportunity we would have changed,” he said. “We had a surplus in 2007 World Cup and we made an error of distributing it to the territories - massive error. And I think we did similar again after the 2024 World Cup in the Caribbean. And referring to the ongoing white-ball series between the West Indies and India, he claimed: “India, they are probably going to make north of 100, 200 million dollars on the series and it’s costing West Indies cricket to go and play in India. It just doesn’t make sense.... You can’t run a business where no matter whether you are the best team in the world you can’t improve your revenues. That’s not a business, the model has to change.”