The regional sports television channel, Sportsmax, could not have dreamed up a cleverer and more poignant headline: Dave Cameron c Shallow b Skerritt 6.
So viewers and West Indies cricket fans were informed of the departure of perhaps the singularly most unpopular figure to govern the West Indian game in a generation.
Admittedly, leaders of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control, then the West Indies Cricket Board, and now Cricket West Indies, have not ever been household names of endearment.
Latter-day administrators have inherited the popular perception of the yeomanry planters who ran intercolonial cricket from the latter half of the 19th Century. All too often, some have lived up to expectations of being tone-deaf, high-handed, haughty fossils, impervious to logic, insensitive to change and immovable by public opinion. From some of their fateful decisions West Indies cricket is yet to recover.
There are redolent examples too numerous to enumerate… But this moment above all spoke volumes of the perennial disdain of some cricket administrators for some of those who made the West Indian game great and sought to make it great again, not by nostalgia but by solid contributions to a team and cricket culture desperate to regain so much lost lustre.
Cameron declared that while the governing body used former players as ambassadors, “we don’t take much credence from what their views are in respect to administration, but we respect them”.
But fans, former and current players, priests and postmen and prime ministers, all began to sing from the cheap seats and the VIP boxes for the end to the administration.
We expect that an old hand in West Indies cricket, namely a former and well-respected manager, will come to the presidency of Cricket West Indies not only with a path to restoring respect but with the goodwill of six million West Indian fans, to say nothing of the many millions in world cricket who have loved the West Indies.
Indeed, as an ex-manager, we fully expect that he will develop – some may even say restore – the role of team manager to that akin to football’s great managers. Let’s leave coaching to coaches; for too long we have submitted our best wishes, earnest prayers and deepest misgivings to technical staff whose job should be to maintain the highest performance standards and allow talent to shine.
As a firm depends on a human resources manager, the West Indies cricket teams should rely on strong, capable and vocal managers to support, protect and defend their charges. Witness the debacle that effectively ended the career of one of our most successful captains in recent times, Darren Sammy, who pleaded against deaf ears for managerial attention.
At the end of the 2016 World T20 triumph in Kolkata, following an emotional, historic, four-wicket victory in the final against archenemy England, Sammy revealed how close the team came to withdrawing before a ball had been bowled, owing to a long-running contract dispute with the board.
We expect Ricky Skerritt to take the criticisms on the chin. We know that he has a history of disagreeing without being disagreeable. We so need that history to be our current story again.
There are many issues that a mere election will not solve. From money problems to dwindling crowds to deeply distracted young people seeking to connect with a sport that has defined the peaceful triumph of a multiethnic, multifaith, multicultural Caribbean for nearly a century.
We certainly also expect him to embrace the greats of our game once again. These are not men who live in the past; they merely created it and they should be given a platform to show our current youngsters how to overcome adversity and scarcity.
Skerritt brings to the job a wealth of experience as a business manager – a most valuable asset in his new role.
But we would advise him to be careful not to squander the tremendous goodwill from governments and cricket fans at home and abroad.
Even our competitors want to see West Indies succeed, doubtless except on the field of play.
History, we are told, does not repeat itself; it rhymes. We hope that a shrewd business executive, capable team manager and committed West Indian will rely on the lessons learned from our now two decades in the doldrums, and work with others to build a path to even greater heights for our storied game.
Go on Ricky Skerritt; the people of the West Indies are behind you.
