Jack Warner slams WICB for blocking Mandela/Lara meeting

CONCACAF president Jack Warner yesterday slammed the West Indies Cricket Board  (WICB) for denying former South African president Nelson Mandela the opportunity to meet world cricket record holder Brian Lara during his visit to Trinidad and Tobago. When Mandela arrived in TT on Thursday night, he asked for the West Indies skipper and was informed that Lara was in St Lucia with the West Indies team preparing for this weekend’s One-day Internationals.

However, speaking with reporters following a luncheon held by the Government at the Hilton Trinidad to honour Mandela, Warner revealed that Lara was all set to come back to Trinidad to meet the former South African president. “Clive Pantin (Lara’s former school principal at Fatima College) was our (CONCACAF) intermediary. Lara said he was willing to come. We told Lara that he would be on the same stage with Mr Mandela at the Oval (for the children’s rally yesterday) and it is a moment in life that he will never ever get again. He told us to contact the WICB. “We contacted the Board and were advised that the Board said he should not leave the team. If anything pained me, that did. He couldn’t leave the team, but the team isn’t playing any match today,” he declared.

Warner recalled that when he met with Mandela at the Johannesburg home of South African president Thabo Mbeki last Sunday, the revered freedom fighter expressed his fervent hope that he would be able to meet Lara during his two-day visit. The CONCACAF president added that the WICB also rejected an offer by BWIA to provide a jet to fly Lara to Trinidad in order to meet Mandela, and then fly him back in time for today’s game in St Lucia. He lamented that there was no way now that Lara could meet Mandela before he returns to South Africa. “I would have given my life for that,” said Warner glumly.