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Pat Rousseau, president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), is out. His vice-president, Clarvis Joseph, is also out.

And team manager Ricky Skerritt is back in.

Such was the outcome of a day marked with typical rumour and speculation about the West Indies' cricket future.

After five contentious years in office, Rousseau resigned last night.

The 67-year-old Jamaican attorney and his vice-president, an Antiguan business executive, quit after the two-day annual general meeting at which directors of the WICB rescinded their decision to sack Skerritt and voted to reinstate him.

Their resignations will take effect from tomorrow and chief executive officer Gregory Shillingford said a new president and vice-president would be appointed at a meeting on Tuesday, at a venue in Barbados to be finalised.

"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 tendered our resignations," Rousseau said in a prepared statement to a media conference at the Accra Hotel where the meeting was held.

He maintained that the board's position directly challenged our competence and our integrity in carrying out the process [of dismissal].

"Since we are not prepared to carry out the directive to reinstate Mr Skerritt, we feel obliged to resign," Rousseau added.

Skerritt said last week he received notice of his dismissal by e-mail from Shillingford. If he accepts his reinstatement, he will join the team's training camp in Trinidad where the players are preparing for the tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya which starts June 17.

Shillingford told last night's media conference he was still in office but would review his position in light of developments. He categorically denied there was any personal animosity between himself and Skerritt.

Rousseau said last night he and Joseph had evaluated the manager during debriefing sessions after each tour since the 44-year-old Kittitian company executive was appointed in March last year, 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," Rousseau said.

He did not elaborate last night but it is known he and Joseph were concerned with Skerritt's allegedly lenient attitude towards team discipline.

"The board challenged the process of the evaluation and was concerned whether the evaluation constituted a formal or proper evaluation," Rousseau said.

"They also questioned our authority, along with that of the chief executive officer, to effect the termination without board approval. We disagreed with that."

The first sign of the disquiet that brought down Rousseau and Joseph came from one of the two Trinidad and Tobago directors, Richard DeSouza, who questioned their authority and said he still regarded Skerritt as manager.

Chetram Singh, president of the Guyana board, was also upset at the way Skerritt was fired and predicted it would be a hot topic at the meeting. Rousseau declined to state what the balance in the voting had been, but one director, who did not want to be named, claimed it was 10-4 with only the Jamaican directors supporting Rousseau and Joseph.

© The Barbados Nation