WICB president urges improvement in performance

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will meet on July 24 and 25 to discuss what its president Julian Hunte considers a crisis in their cricket. The board will ask the team management, specifically coach John Dyson, about how they plan to improve the technical skills of the players to make them competitive on the international circuit.

Dyson had said that West Indies, "compared to the other side, lack some batting skills, some bowling skills and some fielding skills", after they conceded an unbeatable 3-0 lead to Australia in the five-ODI series. West Indies also lost the three-Test series to Australia 2-0.

"We want our team to be number one both in performance and emoluments," Hunte, who is currently in Dubai for the ICC's annual conference, said. "However, if we do not start winning we run the risk of being relegated and we will not be able to earn the money that we require to regain our place at the pinnacle of world cricket.

"We need to synchronise all our various efforts and plans to achieve the short-term objective of getting higher up in the rankings," Hunte said. "We have to widen our pool of talent, have a clearly stated and objective selection philosophy, increase the amount of cricket played at the regional level, and improve the standard of the players and teams in our tournaments, and we must do it all very quickly. If not, we will not be creating history, as we did in the past. We will be history."

At the meeting, the board will also consider the Cricket Committee's recommendations for a new selection panel, since the contracts of the members of the current panel expired on June 30.