All too often, issues of the greatest importance get side-tracked and lost in a cloud of irrelevancies.

Unfortunately, that happens a lot in the Caribbean.

For that reason, this newspaper believes Caricom’s Cricket Review Panel acted wisely in saying up front that its far-reaching recommendations regarding West Indies cricket are in no way personal.

Note the assurance: “The panel wishes to state unequivocally it has no issues with the individuals who occupy the leadership and composition of the WICB or the territorial boards.”

Rather, the panel’s recommendation for “the immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board and the appointment of an Interim Board whose structure and composition will be radically different” from the current “obsolete governance framework” is simple common sense.

The fact is that the administration of West Indies cricket has been stumbling from one crisis to another for as long as the younger ones among us can remember, not primarily because of individual incompetence, though there has been some of that. The more fundamental reason is that the structure was set up to loosely manage an amateur game rather than an “industry” — which the review panel quite correctly pointed out, cricket has now become.

That West Indies cricket, involving territories separated by the Caribbean Sea, could have survived for so long is a great achievement. And the WICB deserves its fair share of commendation.

However, if West Indies cricket is to survive as a going concern in today’s harsh global economic environment, an appropriate structure has to be put in place to govern the industry.

This newspaper agrees entirely that there has to be a change in governance structure which emphasises “professional competencies over territorial representation”.

We agree that transformation of the governance structure must begin immediately and that there must be commitment to a “process of transparency and accountability” so that West Indies cricket can become “a successful, commercial enterprise”.

The quicker that process can begin, the better. As fast as possible, there must be replacement of the proposed Interim Board with a structure reflecting the will of cricket’s stakeholders, and importantly, without the suggestion of control by Caribbean governments.

That’s why there should be no delay in implementation of recommendations for the “resignation of the entire membership of the board, the dissolution of the current board structure, the appointment of an Interim Board, and the adoption of a new governance framework”.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel in terms of the way forward for new, professional governance. Reports of the Patterson and Wilkins committees and — as the Caricom Review Panel pointed out — examples set by others, including Cricket Australia, should be guiding lights.

It seems to this newspaper that as the WICB prepares to sit with Caricom Heads, one thought should be at the forefront. It is that the current recommendations, which echo others down the years, must not be seen in the context of individual or personal interests. Rather, this is about the greater good of West Indies cricket.

They should give thought to the words of their former colleague Mr Baldath Mahabir who recently resigned from the board: “Six million West Indians cannot be wrong.”