Editorial | Kishore Shallow must go

Kishore Shallow, the president of Cricket West Indies, clearly doesn’t get it.

Otherwise, he would be clear that moral questions, or potential conflicts of interest are not resolved by consulting appointments calendars to determine one’s capacity to flit between meetings, or to metaphorically juggle several balls at the same time. Were there this clarity, his resignation from his position in CWI would never be in doubt. It would have been foregone, affected in the immediate aftermath of taking his seat in the Parliament of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and certainly after his appointment as minister of tourism and maritime affairs in that country’s government.

Instead, Dr Shallow has been weighing his options. At the same time his staff at CWI have attempted to give him a plausible argument for staying in office. Others have done it, they say, without providing context, or saying where.

Dr Shallow, 41, has been president of Cricket West Indies since 2023, having previously served as vice president to Ricky Skerritt between 2019 and 2023. He was re-elected for a three-year term in May of this year under CWI’s new term limit rules.

In September 2024, Dr Shallow was announced as a candidate for the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), which won a landslide – taking 14 or the 15 seats parliamentary seats – in general elections on November 27.

Dr Shallow won his seat for the North Leeward constituency and was named to Prime Minister Godwin Friday’s Cabinet. There were widespread expectations across the Caribbean that having now gone into government, Dr Shallow would have resigned all his posts in the leadership of cricket and, particularly his position of president of CWI.

However, Dr Shallow said that he would review his options and that his decision would be based, in part, on whether his ministerial responsibilities would provide him with sufficient time to carry out his CWI duties.

UNBLUSHINGLY GUSHED

In the meantime, in a supposedly congratulatory statement on its website on Dr Shallow’s election victory, CWI, unblushingly gushed about its president’s achievement, which it said placed him “within a distinguished cadre of cricket administrators who have also served at the highest levels of public office”.

Added the statement: “He now joins other sitting International Cricket Council (ICC) Full Member Board Directors who are serving members of parliament in their respective countries, as well as other esteemed West Indian professionals who have held public office while simultaneously serving on the CWI Board and Committees.

“The Board and staff remain confident that Dr Shallow will continue to contribute meaningfully to the progress of St Vincent and the Grenadines and the wider Caribbean community. The organisation looks forward to ongoing collaboration in advancing the development of cricket and promoting excellence throughout the region.”

There are several observations to be made about Dr Shallow’s posture and CWI’s fawning statement.

First, the question of Dr Shallow’s capacity to juggle the two positions should not arise. The fundamental issue is of conflict or interest, or the appearance thereof.

On the latter grounds, Dr Shallow must depart the CWI presidency, especially at the time when unresolved governance issues continue to bedeville the organisation. Despite a few cosmetic changes in recent times, with its cherry-picking of a few recommendations from the Wehby Report on reform, Cricket West Indies has remained resistant to a fundamental overhaul of its structures and to real transparency.

There are other ethical and pragmatic considerations should Dr Shallow continue in the dual role. And some might even argue hypocrisy.

Despite CWI’s many failings, the board and owners of the organizations have become adept at contorting themselves to avoid long-standing efforts by Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments to promote a widening of the organisational structure and management of the organisation, including an implicit embrace of the concept of West Indies cricket as a public good.

UNSTATED CONCERNS

Among the unstated concerns of the administrators was of government and politicians becoming too intrusive in the management of the game, which is not an unreasonable fear, although none of the reform proposals or actions by regional governments have indicated this intent.

With Dr Shallow as a senior government minister and head of CWI, this becomes more likely. At the very least, it ought to raise ethical concerns, especially for the mingling of Dr Shallow’s partisan political interest, St Vincent’s national policy and the management of regional cricket.

The potential for conflicts of interests in this scenario are real. Indeed, in this scenario, Lord Hewart’s 1924 dictum about the administration of justice and matters of fairness, continues to hold true.

He said: “It is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

The judge argued further that “nothing is to be done which creates even a suspicion that there has been an improper interference with the course of justice”.

A straddling Dr Shallow can provide neither assurance nor bankable guarantee that this will be the case.

It may be true that people in politics have served on the board and committees of West Indies cricket, but none have been president of CWI while in government.

Indeed, Dr Shallow’s successor, Mr Skerritt, was out of government for four years before he became president. Ken Gordon’s brief stint in the Trinidad and Tobago Senate and as a minister had ended before he assumed the top cricketing job, as has Julian Hunt’s active political life in St Lucia.

This newspaper does not believe that the Cricket West Indies folks who posted the congratulations to Dr Shallow would wish an emulation of the likes of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe in the past and Sri Lanka with respect to cricket management.