Wavell Hinds loses Derbyshire contract

Thu, Mar 20, '08

Wavell Hinds, the West Indies batsman who signed for the renegade Indian Cricket League, has had his registration refused by the ECB and will not play for Derbyshire this season, Cricinfo is reporting.

Hinds signed for Derbyshire back in October but will now be unable to fulfil his contract after the ECB cited his involvement in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League as one of the factors in turning down his registration.

The Jamaican opener has played domestic cricket in the West Indies over the winter which contravenes ECB registration guidelines but this stipulation has been waived on several occasions in recent seasons. The ECB have declined to exercise their discretion in Hinds case due to his contract with the ICL and have taken similar action with Andrew Hall and Johan Van der Wath at Northants and Justin Kemp of Kent.

The Club does not intend to appeal against the decision, although it is understood that Hinds and the other players in his situation may be taking the matter further.

Chief Executive Tom Sears said: "We are obviously very disappointed that Wavell will be unable to join us this season. While we support the ECB's stance on unsanctioned events we can fully understand why Wavell has accepted the Indian Cricket League offer.

"Now we have a definitive decision we can turn our attention to securing a replacement and we can assure our members and supporters that we have the resources to compete for the very best players that are available.

"John Morris has worked very hard on identifying players we would like to bring in and we hope to make some positive progress in the near future. It is a very competitive market at the moment with a number of counties being affected by the ICL issue, but we have been actively looking at options for a while now in anticipation of this ruling and have the finances in place to attract the best players looking to play county cricket."