Naz Ya­coob

The First Test match be­tween the West In­dies and Bangladesh at the Arnos Vale Recre­ation Ground in St Vin­cent, which was placed in jeop­ardy be­cause of a strike by the re­gion­al play­ers will go on to­day as sched­uled. This was re­vealed by Dave Cameron, vice-pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) at a news con­fer­ence held at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, Cameron re­vealed that a sec­ond 'string' team will be in ac­tion against the tourists. He al­so stat­ed that the 14 play­ers who were orig­i­nal­ly se­lect­ed for the open­ing Test could face dis­cip­inary ac­tion for breech of the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ng and the Col­lec­tive Bar­gain­ing Agree­ment be­tween the WICB and the West In­dies Play­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion.

Cameron stat­ed that the cur­rent state of af­fairs start­ed with the non-ap­pear­ance of the West In­dies crick­et team at the Tick­et Launch of the ICC WT 2020 last Sat­ur­day in St Lu­cia, fol­lowed by the de­ci­sion on Tues­day on the part of the play­ers that they will be un­avail­able for the First Test to­day. He added that he WICB has been pub­licly crit­i­cised in the past for its re­luc­tance in dis­clos­ing in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the op­er­a­tions of the sec­re­tari­at in gen­er­al and re­la­tions with WIPA and the play­ers in par­tic­u­lar.

" While we ad­mit that the board rep­re­sents all its stake­hold­ers across the re­gion, it al­so has to be mind­ful of its own re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in con­tract­ing with its spon­sors and com­mer­cial part­ners. To our own detri­ment at times, we have sought to ne­go­ti­ate with WIPA in good faith and not in the full glare of the me­dia, for ob­vi­ous rea­sons," Cameron said.

He stat­ed con­cern­ing the Re­tain­er Con­tracts, the play­ers have for a num­ber of rea­sons, been play­ing for the last two years with­out con­tracts be­ing signed on time. " While this is not a pre­ferred po­si­tion, we have nev­er­the­less at all times ho­n­oured all our oblig­a­tions un­der the Re­tain­er Con­tracts and the Match and Tour Con­tracts, as well as our oblig­a­tions un­der the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing and the Col­lec­tive Bar­gain­ing Agree­ment be­tween the WICB and WIPA," Cameron added.

He said that the pri­ma­ry rea­son in the board's view for the non-sign­ing of the con­tracts has been the in­tran­si­gence and the un­rea­son­al be­hav­iour dis­played by WIPA on each oc­ca­sion. " Each and every year since the coon­tracts were agreed WIPA has want­ed to make changes to the stan­dard agreed form, and they are not pre­pared to agree on any con­tracts un­less the changes de­mand­ed by them are in­cor­po­rat­ed.

In re­spect of the re­tain­er con­tracts for the 2008/2009 pe­ri­od, the WICB has been try­ing un­suc­cess­ful­ly since Sep­tem­ber 2008 to have dis­cus­sions with WIPA. In fact, when WIPA re­fused de­spite our sev­er­al re­quests to con­vene dis­cus­sions in this re­gard, the WICB in Feb­ru­ary 209 for­ward­ed con­tracts to the play­ers for their sig­na­ture.

On­ly six­teen play­ers signed, these ex­clud­ed most of the se­nior play­ers on the team," Cameron fur­ther stat­ed. He said that the most re­cent change re­quest­ed by WIPA -re the Re­tain­er Con­tracts is to in­clude as a par­ty to such con­tracts a com­pa­ny called WIP­MA­COL, a WIPA sub­sidiary (West In­dies Play­er Man­a­ge­nent Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed), which it claimed is now the own­er of the In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights of the play­ers," Cameron stat­ed.

He said that WICB and WIPA did agree amounts of the Re­tain­er Fees at a meet­ing held in St Lu­cia on April 2, 2009 but since that meet­ing, sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ments (of which WIPA was in­formed), led the board to de­ter­mine that it could not af­ford to of­fer re­tain­er con­tracts be­yond those had al­ready been is­sued. "We cur­rent­ly have 16 play­ers on Re­tain­er Con­tracts and they are paid month­ly as the pro­vi­sions there­of," Cameron stat­ed.

Cameron said that con­cern­ing in­jury pay­ments since meet­ing with WIPA on March 25, 2009, a process was in­sti­tut­ed for the sub­mis­sion of play­ers' in­jury claims and to date, on­ly one play­er, Fi­del Ed­wards, has sub­mit­ted a claim re­lat­ing to the Abu Dhabi se­ries and this has been set­tled. "About the Bangladesh Se­ries, we have al­ways un­der­stood from WIPA, that there was no is­sue on the fees, which have al­ready been agreed.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, at a meet­ing be­tween WICB and WIPA as re­cent­ly as last week, CEO and Pres­i­dent of WIPA, Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, as­sured us that there was ab­solute­ly no is­sue con­cern­ing this se­ries. So we are more than a lit­tle sur­prised at WIPA's sug­ges­tion that this se­ries is in con­tention," Cameron stat­ed. He said that the WICB re­ceived a to­tal of US$2 for the UK Away Tour 2009, which was a reschelued tour as it re­placed the 2010 tour to the UK. "De­spite that fact, the board of­fered US$1.48m in play­ers' fees as far back as No­vem­ber 2008 in a let­ter to WIPA.

This of­fer was mod­i­fied on April 2, 2009, to state that we would com­pen­sate the play­ers suf­fer­ing 'loss­es' on ac­count of their ear­ly de­par­ture from the IPL Tour­na­ment, up to a max­i­mum of $US 900,000. The first time we re­sponse to this of­fer was last week, pur­port­ing to ac­cept the US$1.48m but de­mand­ing al­so that spon­sor­ship fees of US$35,000 per day be paid in ad­di­tion, fail­ing which there would be no agree­ment over­all.

Play­ers would have earned from a high of US$400,000 to US$50,000 each for un­der­tak­ing this short tour. If WIPA's de­mand were ac­cept­ed, it would have re­sult­ed in a pay­out to the play­ers of some US$1,935,000 out of the to­tal of US$2m re­ceived, notwith­stand­ing the fact that the WICB would have ex­pend­ed con­sid­er­able sums in oth­er ex­pens­es in­curred in the Tour," Cameron fur­ther added.

And Pres­i­dent of the WICB Ju­lian Hunte con­firmed l that the open­ing Test be­tween West In­dies and Bangladesh would go ahead as planned on to­day at the Arnos Vale Sports Com­plex. With most of the first choice team ex­pect­ed to sit out the match, West In­dies are ex­pect­ed to field an un­der-strength team for the first of two Tests.

A planned meet­ing is slat­ed for to­day be­tween WIPA and the WICB in Port-of-Spain. And late yes­ter­day evening, three mem­bers of the orig­i­nal 14-man-squad - T&T's Adri­an Barath and Ja­maicans - An­drew Richard­son and Bren­dan Nash were search­ing fran­ti­cal­ly for a flight out of Kingstown. (See Page 44&45)