Dear Editor,

Cricket West Indies (CWI) should make every effort to nominate a Caribbean person as the International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman.

Because Caribbean people are so limited in our thinking we can’t appreciate the accomplishments of our own people such as Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Rex Nettleford, Usain Bolt, Mike McCallum, and many others.

The first country in the world that stood up for black South Africans was Jamaica. It is sad that the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) and CWI are not understanding that Caribbean people are born leaders. It is unfortunate that the JCA and CWI can’t see that we have the ability to run the world if given the chance.

Look at Douglass Sang Hu and Steve Bucknor — two world-class umpires from Jamaica.

Please give Dave Cameron a chance, he is the best person in the Caribbean Community, and worldwide, right now, deserving of the chairmanship of the ICC.

He has the commitment, knowledge, and understanding to become the leader of world cricket. He is a graduate of the game of cricket. He started out scoring the board, scoring the books, maintaining the cricket ground and the pitch.

He became the president of Kensington Cricket Club. He worked his way up to the JCA board and CWI president. It is unfortunate that Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean don’t see him fit to run world cricket.

It is quite obvious that neither the JCA nor the CWI board spent any time thinking about who should be nominated for the chairman position at ICC. The upcoming election, it seems, was not important to the JCA and CWI.

If the Cricket Hall of Fame had not recommended Cameron for the position of ICC chairman, and he had not entered his name for the position, JCA nor CWI would not have had a discussion about the chairman’s position.

What has Cameron done to merit consideration for the position? Just to name a few accomplishments: It was because of Cameron’s ingenuity at the ICC board level that our revenue sharing went from $85 million to $128 million. It was under his leadership that the Caribbean now enjoys professional cricket. We have in excess of 130 professional cricketers in the Caribbean.

Antigua is now home to CWI, which is the proud owner of the facility. President Ricky Skerritt, in a recent interview, explained that CWI did not have the time or resources to deal with cricket in the USA and Canada. This market has the second-largest viewership for cricket in the world. Cameron, towards the end of his last term, was helping to facilitate the growth and development of cricket in the USA and Canada.

We, as black people, need to check out ourselves and, in honour of the late, great Sir Everton Weeks, one of the best ever, we must nominate Dave Cameron for ICC chairman. Let me hope CWI will nominate Dave Cameron knowing that his leadership will cause the ICC to make a difference in the cricket culture in all 104 cricket-playing countries.

Charles Simpson

Founder and president

Portmore Metropolitan Cricket League