Battle lines are being drawn in West Indies cricket between the players and administrators following the team’s shock withdrawal from the tour of India.
In the wake of the unprecedented decision to abandon the campaign at the end of the fourth ODI in Dharamsala on Friday, West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) officials are due to meet in emergency session today to consider the ramifications of their squad’s failure to fulfill a contractual obligation with the most powerful and influential organisation in the international game.
Amid speculation that the Board of Control for Cricket in India is contemplating legal action to recoup losses estimated at $65 million for the cancellation of the last ODI, a lone T20I and three Test matches, the WICB now has to contend with first-choice players at war with their own representative body.
There are also serious doubts as to whether or not the Caribbean side will be able to fulfill its upcoming international engagements which include a tour of South Africa at the end of the year followed by the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
In the aftermath of a decade of almost constant wrangling with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), and more precisely its no-nonsense president and CEO Dinanath Ramnarine, the WICB is now on the side of WIPA and the new man at the helm, Wavell Hinds, in an acrimonious fallout with the players over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement/Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between Hinds and WICB boss Dave Cameron in September.
With the BCCI’s working committee also meeting today to formalise what action, if any, will be taken against the WICB, it is quite possible that the Caribbean officials will have preliminary information from the meeting in India to inform their decision-making given the nine-and-a-half-hour time difference between Ahmedabad and Bridgetown.
