Pressure on Cameron to retain support

The peculiar problems that beset West Indies cricket have been once more thrown into the spotlight during the lead in to the West Indies Cricket Board's March 7 presidential election.

Habitual insularity and politicking have marked the divisive support of the six voting affiliates between current WICB president Dave Cameron, the 44-year-old financier from Jamaica who is seeking a second two-year term, and his only challenger, Joel Garner, the giant fast bowler of the great team of the 1980s, now president of the Barbados Cricket Association.

The issue has occupied more column inches and air time than even the team's fluctuating fortunes in the World Cup. A significant crack appeared to have opened in the previous preference for candidates strictly on the basis of their birthplace when the directors of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) chose to commit their two ballots to Garner, rather than to Cameron, himself a one-time JCA director. It was an option instigated by its two directors on the West Indies board - president Bill Heaven and Dr Donovan Bennett, whose assessment of Cameron's leadership was gleaned from the proximity of round tables in hotel conference rooms around the Caribbean.

In Cameron's two years as ultimate boss of West Indies cricket, its standard, reputation and financial status has plummeted further to unthinkable depths. The team remains rooted to No. 8 in the ICC's rankings in both Tests and ODIs. The long-serving coach Ottis Gibson was dismissed by Cameron last August and is yet to be replaced. Above all, the WICB is still mired in the most financially damaging crisis it has ever confronted.

Already virtually bankrupt, it continues to face a claim from the BCCI for US$42 million compensation for the team's early withdrawal from the scheduled tour last October, for which the Indian board holds the WICB responsible. The WICB is still to present its detailed response. The fallout led to the omission of captain Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard from the subsequent ODIs in South Africa and, more contentiously, the World Cup; it triggered the intervention of two regional prime ministers and Caricom, the regional inter-governmental grouping. All of which made no difference. At the JCA's annual general meeting last week, it was back to the old ways, as the general body overwhelmingly rebuffed their directors, opting for their countryman above the Barbadian. Emotionalism appeared the only reason.

The shift might swing the final numbers back in Cameron's favour. He was nominated by the Guyana board, seconded by the Windward Islands, whose Emmanuel Nathan is vice-president. As such, he could safely count on six of the 12 ballots against Garner's two from Barbados, which nominated him, and two from Trinidad and Tobago, his seconder. The Leeward Islands remain the floater.

Yet the outcome is as unpredictable as the West Indies team itself; two weeks remain until the decisive ballot in Kingston. Cameron and Garner are poles apart, as much in personality as in height. Cameron is loquacious, always ready to speak his mind. He is a shrewd operator who has overcome controversy and criticism to get where he is. Garner is a quiet giant who keeps his cards close to his chest. The one obvious skeleton in his closet is his association's hiring, and subsequent firing, last year of a chief executive who had pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony charge of grand theft in Florida.

Cameron was elected president on March 2013 with the strong endorsement of Jamaica's prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller, who was "confident that a renewal of West Indies cricket will result under his leadership". His 7-5 advantage over the incumbent, Julian Hunte, to whom he had been vice-president for six years, reportedly resulted from the two Barbados delegates defying the direction of their association to plump for Hunte and voting for Cameron instead.

His place as a WICB director goes back over a decade. He was head of the WICB's marketing committee in 2005, when the Irish telecommunications company Digicel won its bid to take over as sponsors of West Indies cricket from its rival, Cable and Wireless. It was a messy business and the WICB set up a committee, headed by Trinidad and Tobago judge Anthony Lucky, to investigate all aspects of the deal. It reported that Cameron had received subsequent financial backing from Digicel to renovate Kensington Club in Kingston, of which he was president. There had been "representation by persons with allegations of improper inducements which are extremely serious if true"; as they presented no hard evidence, the committee gave them "no credence". Even so, it took the view that Cameron's decision "to engage Digicel to finance the Kensington Cricket Club renovation was ill conceived and has cultivated suspicion with respect to improper inducements".

Such challenges seem to activate Cameron's combative juices - to the extent of creating certainty over his own invincibility. At the height of the debacle in India, when he was under his greatest pressure, he defiantly tweeted: "They've criticised you. They've doubted you. They've lied on you. They've done all they can do, but one thing they can't do is stop you."

As the players finally carried out their forewarning that they would abandon the tour, he said, "It felt like an act of terrorism".

Cameron's latest dalliance with social media was, to be euphemistic, a tactical blunder. As West Indies were engaged in a crucial World Cup match against Pakistan in New Zealand, he seized on a tweet from one Gibraun Brijmohan after Gayle was out for 4. "Gayle goes… can't buy a run… let's give him a retirement package… can't fail repeatedly and still front up based on reputation," it read. Presumably with a wicked gleam in his eye, Cameron retweeted the insult to all his contacts. Gayle has been a thorn in Cameron's side over the omission of Bravo and Pollard from the World Cup; it was seemingly his payback.

Gayle is also Jamaican and widely revered, not least in his homeland, as one of the most exciting batsmen of his time. He is now passing through the kind of slump that afflicts every cricketer. At 34, it may be terminal, but that would be cause for mourning not rejoicing. Michael Holding seethed at such crassness in his comments on ESPNcricinfo. He would not have been the only Jamaican, or West Indian, so incensed; even those who sprang to Cameron's side at the JCA's AGM might now be having second thoughts.