?Hav­ing been a qui­et watch­dog so far, the ICC has fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed to clear its throat on the lat­est cri­sis that has en­veloped West In­dies crick­et and of­fered its help as me­di­a­tor, if need­ed.

Dave Richard­son, the ICC gen­er­al man­ag­er, has ex­pressed con­cern over the im­broglio that saw most of the se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers de­cid­ing to boy­cott the on­go­ing se­ries against Bangladesh. The West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) re­fused to ne­go­ti­ate with the West In­dies Play­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA) over var­i­ous is­sues raised by the play­ers in­clud­ing the re­tain­er con­tracts.

"The ICC is con­cerned," Richard­son told Cricin­fo, but con­firmed that the ICC has not li­aised with the WICB. "We will be con­tact­ing them soon and ask them if we could of­fer any help." Richard­son was hope­ful that the cur­rent stale­mate would not af­fect Sep­tem­ber's Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy, where West In­dies could be forced to field a weak­ened squad.

"Cer­tain­ly if the West In­dies (board) does not sort out their re­la­tion­ship with their play­ers it is a con­cern be­cause we need a strong West In­dies team com­ing to the Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy," he said. The WICB's scram­ble to as­sem­ble a team to face Bangladesh has been wide­ly viewed as a face-sav­ing act. Be­fore the first Test the cap­tain, Floyd Reifer, last played for West In­dies in Feb­ru­ary 1999, and the rest of the squad is made up of few play­ers with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, such as Dar­ren Sam­my, and in­ex­pe­ri­enced do­mes­tic play­ers.

With re­gards to views ex­pressed by cer­tain promi­nent fig­ures, in­clud­ing Michael Hold­ing, about the ICC still recog­nis­ing the on­go­ing se­ries as of­fi­cial, Richard­son said strip­ping it of Test sta­tus was not on the cards. Richard­son was hope­ful that West In­dies–un­like Zim­bab­we who were stripped of Test sta­tus pri­mar­i­ly due to the ex­o­dus of clutch play­ers–would be sup­port­ed by their board. "West In­dies have had a proud record and it would be a pity if they can­not main­tain it," he said.