(The following is the full text of joint statement, given at the conclusion of WICB's AGM in Barbados. The statment is that of President Patrick Rousseau and Vice President Clarvis Joseph).

THIS afternoon we advised the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) of Directors that we are resigning from the WICB effective Monday June 4, 2001.

It is based on the unacceptable position in which we find ourselves based on the issue of the termination of Mr. Ricky Skerritt, the Manager of the West Indies Cricket Team.

The Board has taken a decision to reinstate Mr. Skerritt which brings into question our integrity and we are therefore unable to continue as president and vice-president and have indicated our resignations.

Mr. Skerritt was evaluated by Mr. Joseph and myself during a debriefing session after each tour and specifically after the England, Australian and South African tours. We came to the conclusion based on those evaluations and the performance of the teams that he is not in our opinion a suitable person to manage the West Indies team at this time.

The Board challenged the process of the evaluation and was concerned whether the evaluation constituted a formal or proper evaluation. They also questioned our authority along with that of the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gregory Shillingford, to effect the termination without Board approval. We disagreed with that view.

In our opinion the Board's position directly challenged our competence and our integrity in carrying out the process. Since we are not prepared to carry out the directive to re-instate Mr. Skerritt we feel obligated to resign.

When we started on the process of managing West Indies cricket we had set very clear objectives for bringing the management machinery of the Board to a state in which professionalism, efficiency and high standard of performance were to become operational norms. We stated clearly that this was going to be "a new dispensation".

The re-structuring, including the creation of new departments and the appointment of professional heads of department, has run into resistance and the process has gone slowly. The WICB must accelerate the process if the WICB is to operate successfully in the new situation in world cricket and meet the attendant obligations.

© Pat Rousseau and Clarvis Joseph