Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
THE good news is that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will, according to their release on Wednesday, “assure Cricket SA (CSA) that it will use its best endeavours to ensure a successful tour of SA as scheduled”.
The bad news is that a pay dispute has prompted the West Indies’ players to disregard commitments their board make, as evidenced by them abandoning their tour of India last week with a one-day international, a T20 and three tests pending on the fixture list.
Who, then, can blame South Africans for wondering whether the Windies will turn up for the three tests, three T20s and five ODIs they are scheduled to play in SA in December and January?
Clearly, the WICB are concerned with making that happen. But their promise above was the fourth entry on the to-do list included in their release.
The first two entries were geared towards not being sued by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), whose lawyers could demand as much as US$65-million from the WICB.
That is a lot more than the WICB are likely to have in the bank. At the start of the 2012-13 financial year, for instance, their retained earnings amounted to US$128090. A year ago, the WICB were US$5693323 in the red.
As is the case in much of the rest of the cricket world, India’s money keeps the game alive in West Indies. The last tour by India to the Caribbean earned US$22.3-million for the WICB.
Little wonder, then that in their release, the WICB said they were “deeply embarrassed” and expressed their “sorrow” for what had happened in India.
If only resolving the impasse was as easily resolved as saying sorry. A complication is that the players are at loggerheads not only with their board but with their own association over US$35000 that they should share for every day they play abroad.
In February, the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) asked the national squad to allow that money to be used on a new franchise system. They agreed, but secured an undertaking that they would not lose all of the US$35000.
However, last month WIPA signed a memorandum of understanding with the WICB in which none of that sum will, apparently, be paid to the players. West Indies captain Dwayne Bravo has said that the squad were not adequately consulted about the memorandum.
On November 10, the International Cricket Council will meet to decide what to do. If the BCCI lodges a complaint, the WICB could be suspended.
Which would leave CSA up the creek without a tour for the second time in as many seasons, what with a piqued India hacking seven of the scheduled 12 matches out of their itinerary for their visit last summer.
There is little money to be made in television rights when teams like West Indies tour, but those five ODIs would complete SA’s preparation for the World Cup in February and March.
As the only available alternative opponents would be Zimbabwe, SA would give themselves better quality practice by playing intra-squad games. It would not be pretty, but it would be effective.
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