[CRICKET]

Posted May 15, 11:00 PM

Hall: Past cricketers to mentor youth

West Indies Cricket Board President, Wes Hall said the Board would continue to use the services of past and experienced players in the rebuilding effort.

Hall said he felt obliged to involve the region’s former greats in assisting the younger players.

“Our mission is to reconstruct the cricketing architecture of West Indies. We really feel we had to do that. We had to bring back a lot of our older players who no doubt had left in acrimonious circumstances for one reason or another. We feel the older guys can mentor the young fellas. We have had Sir Gary Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Andy Roberts, Lance Gibbs; these are all people who have participated in the rebuilding process. I think that’s wonderful,” Hall said following the opening of the 2003 Shell Cricket Academy on Thursday.

“When it comes to issues of the game called cricket we ask our cricketing committee to advice us. They haven’t got the powers to veto but they have indeed the powers to recommend,” he added.

The WICB chief said the players’ retainer fee system is still to be finalized and the Board would also ensure that some of the players are trained in leadership.

“We feel that our players need to be on a retainer programme which means that if someone is sick or injured they don’t really have to be insecure. They need to earn a living throughout the year. These are things that will happen in the next few months. Well that one is the only thing that we said we’ll do and we haven’t done as yet, and that is 95 percent finish.

We’ve sought to be a little closer to the players in terms of their welfare and industrial relations. We’ve decided that we will train about five or six of them come July in leadership. We feel that our youngsters must be able to go before the world and articulate any cause they have. We also feel that they should be able to negotiate for their own selves,” Rev. Hall said.

He added that, “We are under the scrutiny of the West Indian people so we send out press releases as often as possible. We want people though to treat them as press releases and measures of information,” said Hall.

He said the finances of the WICB continue to be affected since matches are scheduled to play during the hurricane season in the region.

“As long as you deplete our revenue streams by having to play not in January, February, March but if you start playing like you play Australia in March, April and May and then you have to play Sri Lanka in June and July when it’s our Hurricane season that’s going to cause us problems.

We’ve been trying to tell the ICC this for nearly two years and I see this as a hindrance but we do try.

You only make money by three things, gate receipts, sponsorships and TV rights and you have to be playing well to attract all three of those. We’re hoping that this young team will be the answer,” he concluded.

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