Dr Kishore Shallow’s impending tenure as the next Cricket West Indies (CWI) President is set to commence after the organization’s March 25, 2023, Annual General Meeting. When it does it will be under very thick prevailing clouds of scepticism over just how effective his tenure at CWI’s helm will turn out to be.
Dr Shallow is now set to be elected unopposed to the prestigious post, following the last-minute withdrawal from the candidacy race by Jamaica Cricket Board President Billy Haven. The beleaguered JCA President and CWI Director Haven, had become famous throughout Caribbean cricket circles and indeed even beyond to the wider international community for his incoherent “doing the same things differently” ramblings. His suggested methods of improving the sport’s currently impoverished state within the region. Whether as a direct result or not of his publicly demonstrated incoherency, Haven is reported to have lost the required presidential nomination support of one of his fellow CWI territory members.
With Trinidad & Tobago Cricket Board President Azim Bassarath as his Vice-President, the former having also been elected unopposed, Dr Shallow’s presidency will commence against the backdrop of his very impressively structured Pushing The Boundaries Campaign Manifesto. As young, intelligent, educated and articulate as he has already demonstrated himself to be, Dr Shallow has certainly further impressed most everyone with the crystal-like clarity of his Manifesto-outlined vision of achieving a much brighter future for West Indies cricket.
“A Paradigm Shift in West Indies cricket requires drastic changes in attitude, commitment, and actions. These changes need to be evident and consistent throughout the organisation and cricket system. Dr. Kishore Shallow is committed to Leadership that drives excellence in the endeavour for a successful Cricket West Indies (CWI).
Pushing the Boundaries represents going beyond our ostensible limits, being innovative, collaborating, and surpassing our recognised potential. The efforts of all CWI stakeholders must be grounded in this concept if we are to propel West Indies cricket to our deserved standing in World Cricket.
The Four identified pillars, presented in this document, will be aligned and implemented in the concept of Pushing the Boundaries. The new Leadership will strengthen ongoing relevant programs to realise more output. Uncharted areas will complement these with great vigour and purpose in implementation.”
The four mentioned pillars in the Manifesto’s introduction and upon which Dr Shallow’s intended initiatives will be structured are Cricket Development, Human Capital, Commercial & Marketing and Governance. The Manifesto also goes even further in impressively identifying no less than ten (10) “Power Play| initiatives to be implemented within the first six months of Dr Shallow’s presidential tenure.
As the saying goes, however, “action speaks much louder than words!”
And it is precisely for such a reason that the aforementioned clouds of speculation over the actual efficiency of Dr Shallow’s presidency now prevail. His personal record of administrative action has fallen short of qualification to be justifiably described as admirable.
For starters, Dr Shallow was himself, the Vice President of his CWI presidential predecessor Ricky Skerritt’s, two-term, four-year administration. Now widely regarded to be the worst ever in the organization’s illustrious history. That evaluation has been based on the administration’s abject failure to deliver on the greater majority of the promises it had made in, not just one but two, campaign manifestos.
Dr Shallow’s credibility as an action-oriented doer, someone who himself delivers on promises made, was further severely damaged by his having publicly taken responsibility for addressing the issues surrounding “TapeGate.” Which then took well over six months to be fixed. TapeGate was the name given to the unsavoury saga of globally televised images of West Indies players participating in international matches, clad in team shirts with the logos of a former sponsor covered by unsightly masking tape, that remained unresolved for well over six months.
As indicated in the Manifesto’s Cricket Background section, Dr Shallow also chaired the Taskforce which developed the first West Indies selection policy. Based on the inadequacies and inconsistencies that have continued to be a major part of selected West Indies teams of late, that established policy now also appears to have been a failed and abandoned initiative.
One of Dr Shallow’s other listed personal achievements is his having created Vincy Cricket as the first lucrative T10 League in the Caribbean. As Mickey Holding would say T10 cricket would be best described as “Lickit On Steroids!” Not, therefore, an accomplishment that anyone with an understanding of the most urgent restructuring and developmental needs of Caribbean cricket would want to be boasting about!
For all its glitzy presentation and impressive structure, Dr Shallow’s Manifesto also falls woefully short of expectations by one glaring omission. There’s no direct mention made of solving the challenge of providing more domestic match-playing opportunities for regional cricketers. “Ensure more Competitive Cricket across the Levels, with Emphasis on Under 23s immediately,” which falls under the Cricket Development Pillar is the closest the Manifesto comes to addressing that now very crucial need.
The loss of English County cricket finishing school contracts has long since been identified, as one of the major contributing factors for the precipitous decline that West Indies cricket has now been experiencing for over two and a half decades. Since 1995 to be precise.
Every single member of the all-conquering Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards led West Indies teams of the 1979-91 halcyon glory days of West Indies cricket were English County Cricket-honed, highly professional, practitioners. Many key, Test-discards, members of the subsequent West Indies’ South Africa rebel tours including Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Colin Croft, David Murray and Sylvester Clarke, were also English County cricket grads.
Establishing a suitable regional tournament replacement for the annual five-month-long English County Season, as a means of providing Caribbean cricketers with sufficient match playing opportunities that would then allow them to further hone and develop their individual talents has, therefore, been an ongoing failure of previous CWI administrations. The current Caribbean four-day Championships, comprised as it of six teams playing only five matches each, falls woefully short by what is required!
As the newly elected President, Dr Shallow’s immediate task will be to successfully address such ongoing issues, in addition to implementing his ten identified Power Play initiatives. As another former CWI President, Jamaica’s Dave Cameron, has indicated Dr Shallow’s biggest challenge in doing so will be to get Regional Board Reps to buy into his vision.
The downside of well presented, impressively structured, Manifestos is that they also establish a framework against which actual activities can be judged. The Caribbean cricket world will, therefore, now wait to see whether or not Dr Kishore Shallow can indeed emerge from the dark foreboding shadows of his direct association with Ricky Skerritt’s failed presidency into the much-needed brilliant sunshine of a well-crafted brighter future for West Indies cricket.
If he does it will not only be most pleasantly surprising to witness but also joyously celebrated by all!