AGE was a bubbling topic as 79-year-old Dr Donovan Bennett was returned unopposed as president of the Jamaica Cricket Association on Thursday.

Veteran sports administrator Anthony Davis and long-time St Ann Cricket Association President Keith Walford both successfully challenged for the posts of general secretary and second vice-president, respectively.

Davis defeated 44-year-old incumbent General Secretary Laurence Garriques 48-31, while Walford won by the same margin over 58-year-old former West Indies cricketer Nehemiah Perry.

The highlight of recent constitutional changes has been the extension of term limits from two years to four, allowing the elected executive to remain in office until 2030.

Bennett, who was elected president in April 2024, expressed humility at being given another term.

“I am humbled and I’m very grateful for the renewed faith and trust that people have placed in me,” he told the Jamaica Observer after voting ended at Kingston Cricket Club, Sabina Park.

“The two years, it ran off pretty quickly and it certainly wasn’t enough to really do everything that the team had planned. So, I think we are more comfortable now that we have a four-year period in which we can really drive the organisation forward,” Bennett added.

Both Perry and Garriques congratulated the winning candidates, even as they lamented what might be the fate of the sport under the elected leadership.

“The delegates spoke and you have to respect that,” Perry, the Kingston Cricket Club president, was quick to point out.

“Congratulations to the winning candidates, and I hope that they can take Jamaica’s cricket to an upward level. But I just believe that if we’re really serious about cricket, then we need to really take a look at who are serving cricket and [if they are] serving it with some sort of passion, some sort of love and care,” Perry said.

Garriques was also left deflated after votes were tallied.

“It is disappointing [to lose], but at the same time, I believe the cricket public has spoken, and we accept what the public has said and the direction that cricket intends to go in. It has been, in my opinion, a very fair and free election,” the outgoing general secretary told the Observer.

He said it was instructive that a number of younger candidates failed in their bid to get on the executive or to become board directors.

“I’m not sure if I would call it a trend, but it is glaring in our faces that the persons who would have been selected, they are of the older age group. But also to note that the voting population is of the older age group. So I don’t think it’s any coincidence that those who are voted in might be of that group,” Garriques noted. Bennett shrugged off the observation, insisting that democracy had the final say.

“I have no control over how the voting goes. It’s very simple — this is a democratic institution. People are free to vote for who they want to vote for, and whoever they vote for, I have to accept it and work with it. I’m not exalted, and at the same time, I’m not disappointed. I just have to work with who the shareholders want me to work with,” he said.

— Sanjay Myers