‘Chucker’ in WI U-19 W/Cup team

THE West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) agreed to send a fast bowler to the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh even though it had well-documented evidence of a suspect bowling action.

According to internal WICB documents reviewed by CaribbeanCricket.com, the board’s cricket committee (playing and development) twice discussed the player’s “known suspect bowling action” and even mandated that a remedial programme be conducted by the territorial board. “The (cricket committee) meeting discussed the implications of a player with a known suspect bowling action being selected by the WICB to participate in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup. It was however decided that (the player) would proceed to the Tournament,” according to the document. (CaribbeanCricket.com is withholding the player’s name until after the World Cup tournament).

WICB president Teddy Griffith was in attendance during the discussions and was part of the decision to send the bowler to Bangladesh. The decision to send the player to the World Cup could backfire in a big way for the WICB, which has already been embarrassed by the well-chronicled Jermaine Lawson fiasco. Even more worrying is the fact that the ICC has dispatched a three-man panel to the Youth World Cup in Bangladesh to keep an eye out for players with flawed action.

Here is a section of an ICC statement issued on Wednesday: “There is also an expert ICC panel in Bangladesh at the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup comprising Bob Woolmer, Waqar Younis and Prof Bruce Elliot (human movement specialist) that is in place to identify any bowlers in the next generation of international cricketers who have flawed actions to ensure that these are dealt with early on in their careers.” The West Indies player has already played in the tournament and it’s not a stretch to imagine the ICC’s expert panel will make a note of his name in its report. Having already dealt with criticisms over the way reports of Lawson’s illegal action was overlooked for many years, it comes as a shock that the WICB would make the same mistake twice.

During two separate cricket committee meetings (in Jamaica last October and at a January sit-down in Antigua), computerised still and action shots of the bowler’s action were shown and it was agreed that there was enough evidence to mandate a remedial programme. During the October meeting, it was reported that fast bowling coach Kenny Benjamin had done some work with the bowler during Zone ‘B’ of the 2003 Red Stripe Bowl tournament. A form detailing the problems with the bowler’s action was sent to the territorial board with a request for a remedial programme to be implemented.

A central figure in this episode is junior selection panel chairman Clyde Butts, who is a member of the WICB cricket committee. Butts, who was present at the October meeting (he missed the January meeting with flight problems), is now the coach of the West Indies Under-19 World Cup team. Butts, who is the WICB’s cricket development officer in Guyana, was also given computerised data of similar problems with the bowling action of fast bowler Rayon Griffith but it is unclear if any work was done to fix Griffith’s delivery. In fact, according to eyewitnesses, Griffith’s action was “ridiculously illegal” in last week’s Carib Beer Cup match between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.