The Windward Islands Cricket Board (WICB) will be placing greater emphasis on improving Cricket in Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
That was among several major decisions taken at a retreat of the Board in St Lucia last weekend.
The Windward Islands Cricket Board will also offer six-month retainer contracts to three players from each member-country, and a full-time cricket coach will be appointed in each territory.
The Board appointed former West Indies Twenty/20 batsman, Miles Bascombe as Technical Director. Each island will have an Operations Manager/Development Officer.
A bilateral series for emerging players across the Windward islands will be introduced. The Advancing Cricketers through Education (ACE) programme will be expanded, competitive cricket across age levels for men and women will be re-introduced.
The Windward Islands Cricket Board has also made several reforms to its governance structure.
The offices of President, Vice President and CEO have been be renamed Chair, Vice-Chair and Executive Director respectively.
In the electoral process, nominations for the various offices on the Board will open six weeks before the Annual General Meeting (AGM), and close 30 days before the elections, and voting at Annual General Meeting will be by each member Association’s two alternate Directors instead of the two Directors.
The offices of Secretary and Treasurer will each have Terms of Reference governing their duties, and each holder will be required to have professional legal and financial backgrounds. The Secretary and Treasurer will be able to vote on Administrative matters.
The Windward Islands Cricket Board noted that the changes related to cricket will take immediate effect, while the constitutional and governance reforms will become effective from Annual General Meeting scheduled for May.
President of the Board, Dr. Kishore Shallow said that he was pleased with the outcome of the retreat, and described the various changes as “a defining moment in Windwards Cricket, and undoubtedly an exciting time to be involved as we modernise cricket administration in this sub-region”.
