We are not surprised that Ken Gordon has offered his resignation as president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) while, at the same time, offering a sort of manifesto on the future of the board and the process of accountability.

Indeed, those who have worked with Gordon over his long and successful career as a media executive will know that among his traits is to be detailed and methodical and to hold people accountable, including himself. Indeed, many of his colleagues say that his demands are irritatingly niggling.

Unfortunately, the management culture that served him so well in transforming a small Trinidadian newspaper into a large media conglomerate did not migrate with him to the WICB; which is understandable.

Part of the problem is that the governors of the WICB, except for the efforts at reform by the Pat Rousseau presidency and Gordon's recent foray, have failed to take a seriously corporate and managerialist approach to West Indies cricket. It has remained largely what it has been from the start - a sort of gentlemen's club.

In this kind of environment, it was not surprising that Rousseau and his deputy, Clarvis Joseph, were overturned when they attempted to fire a manager whom they deemed not to have met performance-based criteria, and could not make headway in having a manager held accountable for seemingly risky investment of the WICB's money.

These failings cruelly exposed the weak structures of West Indies cricket which had been masked by a decade-and-a-half of winning; a period of an unprecedented flow of extraordinarily talented players. In essence, while others built, caught up and surpassed the West Indies, we rode our luck. That was not sustainable.

It is against this backdrop of lurching from crisis to crisis that Gordon came to the WICB and against which his tenure of the past two years has to be assessed.

It is to be recalled that he was called to the presidency because the position of his predecessor had become untenable, having presided over the messy handling of a sponsorship deal and the inability of the board to negotiate contracts with players grown fat and arrogant. The WICB subsidiary preparing for Cricket World Cup was in disarray, its CEO and chairman in conflict. The WICB itself was without a CEO.

Gordon and his administration have been able to bring a level of stability to the management of West Indies cricket. It is clear nonetheless that serious problems persist, underlined by the largely uninspired performance by the region's team in the World Cup. But having made the start, at 77, Gordon seems unlikely to be the person to carry to conclusion the transformation of West Indies cricket.

And that he himself has declared the need for taking responsibility from the top is an important signal of accountability. In that respect, he is right about this window of opportunity for a fresh start: with a new president, a new captain, a new coach, a new CEO and improved finances.

Ken Gordon was given a sticky dog on which to bat. In the circumstance, his was a very credible and dignified performance.