There are few people with a keener sense of being West Indian than Sir Shridath Ramphal and who understand the place of cricket on the region's psyche or as a metaphor for something greater than our individual selves.

In that regard, Sir Shridath, a Guyanese national and a former secretary general of the Commonwealth, is an ideal choice for the job of mediator between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the striking regional cricketers who want more money.

The latter point ought not be missed, notwithstanding the wont of many to be instinctively against the board. But, as the saying goes in Jamaica, 'one hand can't clap'. The players have no contract, in part, because they do not accept the WICB's claim of its inability to pay.

We make these observations merely to underline the complexity of Sir Shridath's task in a matter laden with emotion and mostly stacked against the WICB, though not necessarily without cause. The board's blunders have been gargantuan; the debacle at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium in Antigua earlier this year during the Test against England still rankles.

The board, of course, may argue, not without merit, that in disputes with players it suffers in the court of public opinion - and elsewhere - from an anti-management/anti-establishment sentiment that runs deeply in the Caribbean. History and sociology play a big role in this.

Indeed, it is noteworthy that in most analyses of the problems of West Indian cricket, the report by the Patterson Committee included, the focus tends to be on weaknesses in administration, leading to calls for the restructuring of the WICB. Identification of the failures of the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and its contribution to the dysfunction of cricket management in the Caribbean tend, at best, to be lukewarm and tangential. It is time that the players' trade union and its CEO, Dinanath Ramnarine, are held to account.

In that regard, we hope that Sir Shridath, with his legendary negotiating skills and empathy for the Caribbean, will interpret his mandate in the broadest possible terms, and that he is able to coax the parties to a solution beyond the rights and wrongs of narrow legalism.

Remuneration

So, while Sir Shridath should seek to resolve the matter of remuneration and contract, he will have done the Caribbean a greater service by wringing a timetable from the WICB - the earlier the better - to restructure the organisation along the lines suggested by this newspaper, or even what was proposed by the Patterson group. Indeed, Julian Hunte, the president of the WICB, must see that such a move would be in the best interest of West Indies cricket, and that he would secure a place in the history of the game for having led this reform.

At the same time, Sir Shridath must not give WIPA a free pass. The players' union must be made aware, in the most absolute of terms, that its perennial petulance and anachronistic approach to contract negotiations have lost their place in a modern Caribbean.

Sir Shridath, must, too not so privately, tell Mr Ramnarine that he has now become more hindrance than help and that he should go.

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