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By Neto Baptiste
Iconic West Indies fast bowler, Sir Andy Roberts, wants President of Cricket West Indies (CWI), Dr Kishore Shallow and others to resign amid what he labels as “serious problems” plaguing regional cricket with no real solution in sight.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, the Antiguan was frank and direct, holding no punches as he said that coach Daren Sammy has been given too much power as coach and selector by a board out of its depth.
“The Director of Cricket [Miles Bascombe] should walk, the President [Dr Kishore Shallow] should walk, the coach [Daren Sammy] should walk, first and foremost, because I don’t see how you have one person who has all that amount of power to dictate the fortunes of five million people but if you can’t accept responsibility then how are you going to resign,” he said.
West Indies were bowled out for just 27 in their second innings of the final Test against Australia on Monday in Jamaica. It is the second lowest score in Test history. In response, CWI has called for an emergency meeting to review the series and the final match in particular. They have invited legends Sir Viv Richards, Sir Clive Lloyd, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Desmond Haynes and Brian Lara to attend the meeting.
Sir Andy said that although he was surprised by the score, the issues eroding West Indies cricket cannot be solved by a postmortem of a series.
“I was surprised because I’ve never known a Test side to lose three wickets in the first over and I am not even thinking about scoring a run because they lost three wickets in the first over. We have some serious problems and having the odd meetings is not going to solve the problems. They need to look at the cricket overall in terms of the development of the cricket so we have to start from youth and we must have proper coaches,” he said.
The Antiguan also called on Shallow to issue a public apology to Caribbean people over statements he made while on another show, suggesting that critics are prejudiced towards Sammy because of his nationality.
“He needs to apologize to the Caribbean people for making that statement. Bajans gave Viv a horrible time when he was captain; they gave Richie a torrid time when he was captain but they never said it out loud that it was because they are Antiguans; so insularity has never left but he [via his statement] brings it out into the open. All of us, even people in the Leewards, are saying that there is insularity because he is focusing more on St Vincent and the Windward Islands,” Sir Andy said.
Australia won the final Test by 121 runs within three days to complete a three-match series sweep against the home team.
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