Vin­ode Mam­chan

The last minute de­ci­sion to stage two T20 match­es against In­dia in Flori­da turned out to be a bless­ing in dis­guise for the West In­dies.

Sources say the match­es were fi­nan­cial suc­cess­es with some US $11.2 mil­lion be­ing gen­er­at­ed from me­dia rights and gate re­ceipts.

Al­though crick­et in the Amer­i­c­as falls un­der the aus­pices of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB), it was the Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia (BC­CI), who were giv­en per­mis­sion by the WICB to host the match­es, and de­spite the fact that one of the two games was af­fect­ed by rain, the BC­CI was still able to make a prof­it.

A mem­ber of the WICB told Guardian Me­dia that the out­come has gone a long way in heal­ing wounds be­tween the two crick­et­ing na­tions fol­low­ing the 2014 de­ba­cle which saw the West In­dies abort­ing a tour of In­dia with sev­er­al match­es still to be played.

The fi­as­co left the WICB with a debt of US $41.97 mil­lion and it took months of dis­cus­sion and sen­si­tive ne­go­ti­a­tions be­fore the WICB and the BC­CI were able to ar­rive at a work­able op­tion.

Speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, the WICB di­rec­tor said the board through some sound ne­go­ti­a­tions has been able to come up with so­lu­tions to the paci­fy the In­di­ans.

Ac­cord­ing to the di­rec­tor: "A crick­et­ing so­lu­tion has been used to bring this mat­ter to an end and this is re­al­ly great for us be­cause a bill of that mag­ni­tude would have crip­pled West In­dies crick­et. The pres­i­dent of the WICB Dave Cameron said from the out­set that he was look­ing to­wards a crick­et­ing so­lu­tion and he found it.

"The Board gave the In­di­ans the go ahead to stage the two T20s in Flori­da. The In­di­ans took charge of the event and it was a great fi­nan­cial suc­cess for them. They had re­al­ly good crowds at the two match­es and of course, be­cause of the tremen­dous in­ter­est in their team back in In­dia, the tele­vi­sion rights were easy to ne­go­ti­ate and brought in good rev­enue."

Crick­et in­ter­est in the US, and es­pe­cial­ly the Flori­da area, picked up dur­ing the match­es and both games were sold out with at­ten­dances in the range of 12,000 pa­trons.

West In­dies won the two-match se­ries 1-0, af­ter rain washed out the sec­ond game at the half way stage.

The di­rec­tor not­ed that the arrange­ments did not end in Flori­da. "The arrange­ment struck is that the In­di­ans would re­turn to the West In­dies af­ter the Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy in Eng­land next year and the West In­dies would trav­el to In­dia lat­er in 2017 to make up for the loss. In both in­stances, we ex­pect the In­di­ans to gen­er­ate rev­enue that will ease the pain of their loss­es in 2014."

The BC­CI has al­so been giv­en the green light to stage T20 match­es in Flori­da next year. This means that the win­dow has opened up to ben­e­fit the WICB since they will be able to host match­es as the home team af­ter that.

The West In­dies team, led by Dwayne Bra­vo, walked out of the 2014 tour of In­dia af­ter four of the five ODI games, cit­ing a break­down in ne­go­ti­a­tions over their pay struc­ture with the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA).

The WICB was un­able to send a team for the T20 and three Test match­es that were to fol­low. The Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia (BC­CI) then for­ward­ed a bill for US$41.97M to the WICB for dam­ages aris­ing out of the walk­out. They al­so sev­ered all bi-lat­er­al re­la­tions, which end­ed ear­li­er this year, with the In­di­ans com­ing to the West In­dies for four Test match­es.