Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves had called for the resignation of the President of Cricket West Indies (CWI), Kishore Shallow and his entire board after the embarrassing 27-run innings by the regional team against Australia in a Test on Monday.
The call on Wednesday came one day after Shallow said he expected Gonsalves to make it and questioned the prime minister’s performance as head of the CARICOM Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket and his government’s contribution to the sport in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).
Partisan politics has infused the discussion about the performance of the regional team as Shallow will represent the main opposition New Democratic Party in a face-off against the ruling Unity Labour Party’s Carlos James, who is minister of tourism and culture, in North Leeward in general elections later this year.
On July 10, two days after Vincymas, Shallow commended the winners in the festival, saying at a campaign event in Spring Village:
“But if we are going to celebrate that carnival that just finished, then Lord help us all. Lord, help us all, because it means that our standard is so low that we are going to celebrate a below-average performance by this government when it comes to carnival.”
Gonsalves took up Shallow on this and other points in his weekly programme on NBC Radio on Wednesday.
‘egg is all over your face’
“God, really don’t like ugly. You badmouth the carnival says is the worst ever and within days, metaphoric egg is all over your face,” the prime minister said.
He said Shallow and the leadership of CWI “start to cuss everybody else” after the team’s embarrassing performance.
“He said, … the fault is that the governments not putting no money in cricket. The governments of the region who have put hundreds of millions of dollars into cricket, for instance, into facilities and providing supports in one way or the other from school cricket right up.”
Gonsalves said he cannot recall receiving a proposal from CWI to partner with the government of SVG with a specific programme.
“I’m sure they do things with the cricket associations, which are their constituent parts, and all the rest of it. Well, to some degree.
“But given the terrible performance of Cricket West Indies over the whole period, I have to join with other leaders and other informed persons across the region to call for the resignation of the entire board of West Indies Cricket,” Gonsalves said.
He said this is what should be done “for starters”.
“Let’s get a new board, and then let that new board carry out a thorough forensic inquiry about everything, including all the financial transactions of Cricket West Indies, because some things which I hear, I can’t believe, but it would be good to know.”
The prime minister said he was not saying all that he had heard,” adding, “I’m just saying what I hear, and from some persons who are not known for hysteria.
“I’m not making any imputation of impropriety against anybody. But surely you have to take full responsibility as the leadership of West Indies cricket, the board, for this debacle. It’s a humiliation of our people. If I had performed so badly in relation to any matter, the people would have been on the streets calling for my head.”
Gonsalves said that CWI was blaming everybody but themselves, adding, “I would have thought that with a debacle like that, you will invoke the proposition to be contrite and to do what the ancient Roman Catholic religion, what the mantra they say in Latin, … mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, when you’re doing your contribution and said, I take responsibility. if you want to solve it. Say, well, but I don’t take all the blame. There’s some more blame to share, but I’m taking responsibility, and this thing is so horrendous, I can’t come and face people,” Gonsalves said.
Shallow shoulders responsibility
However, in an interview with Boom FM the previous day, Shallow had accepted responsibility for the team’s performance.
“I believe in accountability. So as the president of Cricket West Indies, you can’t escape responsibility for your team,” he said.
He, however, said that while he was “hurt” and “disappointed” by the regional team’s performance, he would not make any rash decision, such as firing the head coach or resigning from his post
“This is, again, about people, and this is what leadership is about: being composed in these difficult situations,” Shallow said on Tuesday.
He said it was very easy to scapegoat in those types of situations.
“When you have situations like this, it is so easy for one to say the board,” adding that the previous day he had seen comments about the board, the head coach, the director of cricket, and the selectors.
SVG’s contribution to cricket under scrutiny
“But no one really points towards the root of the issue,” Shallow said, adding that he wanted to put things into context.
“Let’s bring this to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. How many test players has St. Vincent developed in the last 15 to 20 years? How many Vincentians are in the West Indies team now — this test team? Zero,” he said.
Shallow said that while Barbados-based West Indies test player Jomel Warrican is Vincentian, he has played all of his cricket in Barbados, and SVG cannot claim credit for his performance.
“How many Vincentian batsmen?” Shallow further said, adding that batting seems to be the problem in West Indies cricket.
“We can’t produce a batsman, one batsman in St. Vincent, from St. Vincent to play in West Indies team right now, just using this national context.
“If you look further — and this is where the root of the issue is — nationally and say who is the next Vincentian player that could make West Indies team, you would scratch your head for very long time, because it’s difficult to identify any.”
Shallow said the systems and breeding ground that should be producing players for Cricket West Indies are not doing so.
“So, when the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the prime minister — because I expect him to come out … between today tomorrow, we know we going to hear from him, and he’s going to come out with an ego and be celebrating this in his usual disguised way.
“And he is going to come and lambaste West Indies, especially the president of Cricket West Indies, blaming him for that performance yesterday. When he himself has been in government for 25 years and cannot produce a test player because we do not have any infrastructure for players locally to train on.
“Now, how can you expect to have batsmen of international standard competing against the likes of Hazelwood, Cummins and Starc for Australia but yet you don’t have infrastructure where players could go and practice on afternoons or in the morning if rain come.”
Shallow said that CWI owns a facility in Antigua where it brings together players that have been identified nationally.
What did Gonsalves do as CARICOM’s cricket chair?
Shallow also scrutinised Gonsalves’s chairmanship of the CARICOM Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket
“… people keep forgetting he was the chair of the subcommittee on cricket for many years before I became the president of Cricket West Indies,” said Shallow, who became CWI president in 2023 and was re-elected unopposed in March.
“Ask him, what did he do during that period? … He couldn’t even do anything in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, much less across the region.”
Shallow credited former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley, one of Gonsalves’ successors as chair of the CARICOM committee, “who at least made an effort and had at least three meetings with Cricket West Indies”.
He said Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, the current chair of the committee, has reached out to CWI, offering to collaborate to establish an academy.
“Currently, President Ali is building four stadiums in Guyana that we’re going to use for cricket. What did Dr. Ralph Gonsalves do while he was the chair of that committee? What has he done for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for cricket?”
Shallow said that the Gonsalves government gives the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association (SVGCA) EC$50,000 annually, a figure that has remained unchanged for probably for 20 years.
“How can a national cricket association do anything substantial, anything significant, with no funding from the government?” Shallow said.
He noted that he was president of the SVGCA, adding that when his tenure began, the group was in a deficit.
“When I left there, we had a million dollars in our account.”
This is the behavior of your typical caucasian ..he’s the lone voice in the sub region calling for the removal of the head of the ECCB and now ,he wants the CWI to cease existing. All this, so he can put the little black boy in his place. Hope the other leaders in the region who are mainly of African descent, don’t go along with this cracker.
Shallow correctly identifies the core issue: the lack of a strong developmental pipeline.
SVG has produced zero Test players in recent years, partly due to inadequate facilities.
while other Caribbean nations like Barbados and Guyana invest more in cricket infrastructure, and yield better results. CWI’s reliance on regional boards for talent development is flawed if those boards lack funding. Gonsalves’ counterargument that CWI never submitted proposals for partnership rings hollow. As CARICOM’s former cricket chair, he should have proactively engaged CWI to address these gaps.
Shallow’s critique of systemic neglect is valid.
Is dis d big old white boy versus d little young black boy ? who ah d umpire . some people can be really badminded and grudgeful .
wen some ar yo bin accused rapeee mek aryo na bin resign
A young decent black man with moral and Intergrity, a future PM , tek dat in yo white 🧒. Thanks be to Jesus that he was never accused of rape and young woman sent crazy home. Thank You Abba Father.
Ralph G, my friend. I realized that your hands and lips are very idle so, the devil is finding work for you. However, don’t use Mr Shallow as an excuse for you to be behaving like an demented person or a recurring decimal (repeating your foolishness, nonsensical rhetorics). Opposition is good, you were once we’re so, what the hell if somebody else is now. SVG is not a dictatorship… democracy is still alive! You had your 25 year stint, your time is up…GO in Piece!