BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Cricket West Indies (CWI) President Ricky Skerritt said the game in the Caribbean is “facing great challenges”, but there are opportunities for improvement and growth.

Skerritt said success for West Indies over the next two to 10 years is rooted in the commitment to the “cricket first” philosophy and “West Indian first” policy that he brought to the table following his election to the post of president.

“Great things can be achieved when the West Indian cricket community strives to think big and think differently, to collaborate and innovate together, and to put insularity and petty cricket politics to bed,” he said.

“Cricket still has a golden chance to drive transformative growth and secure its sustainable long-term future in our West Indian culture for several more decades to come.

“West Indians are a resilient people. Sir Frank Worrell showed us how to face up to adversity, and in honour of his memory, let us pledge to continue to rally around the West Indies.”

Skerritt was delivering the 20th annual Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture, which was virtually hosted by the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies through its Faculty of Sport. He was addressing the topic ‘Reforming Cricket West Indies for Improved On-field Results’.

Skerritt said the novel coronavirus pandemic had impacted CWI significantly, but the governing body was committed to forging ahead with plans to move the game forward in the Caribbean.

“[The pandemic] has disrupted regional and international schedules and introduced significant biosecurity costs and dramatically changed markets for sponsorship and broadcast rights, reduced facilities access, and caused development funding cuts, no gate receipts, and numerous job losses,” he said.

“The truth is that for the past eight months, COVID-19 has significantly slowed our forward reform momentum on both the cricket operations and financial revenue fronts.”

He said: “Fortunately, before the advent of COVID-19, we had already begun important and urgent off-field reforms that will ultimately fulfil the essentials of the ‘cricket first’ philosophy.

“While it is clear that the financial and other challenges of COVID-19 will not go away quickly, we cannot stop moving forward.”

Skerritt said the main barrier to success was the unwillingness, of people associated with the game, to change.

“In today’s complex and rapidly changing world, to be an effective organisation that produces winning teams, we must direct all of our resources towards developing appropriate and efficient cricket-specific processes and outputs,” he said.

“We must simultaneously embrace the concept of perpetual growth, continuous learning, and constant improvement of our human resources on every level.

“And we must sincerely believe, and practice, that the combined effort and joint action of the best talent and minds from across the Caribbean region is greater than the sum of the individual parts, and their separate effects.”

Skerritt said “focus and context are the two key things” that CWI must put back at the centre of the organisation if success is to be achieved.

“Our cricketers and staff must therefore be taught to develop and implement improvement goals and priorities,” he said.

“And they need to understand that all improvement goals are not equal. They, therefore, need to identify the goals and improvement processes that will give the more significant pay-offs. And we must all have the discipline and enthusiasm to implement solutions no matter how uncomfortable or unpopular.”

Skerritt, a past manager of the West Indies men’s team, was elected CWI president in March 2019 and pledged to work towards the redevelopment of the game in the Caribbean.