Time to restore order in West Indies cricket

Tue, Jul 18, '17

That infamous day, October 17, 2014, in Dharmasala when West Indies abandoned their tour of India, signaled an unprecedented escalation of tensions between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), recently renamed Cricket West Indies (CWI), and its players.

Previous player and board clashes after the 1998 South Africa tour, 2005 Sri Lanka tour and 2009 Bangladesh home series had resulted in some temporary reconciliation with both parties. However after 2014, the current Dave Cameron-led administration took unprecedented steps to make West Indies the only team in world cricket, and possibly modern professional sports, with the majority of its elite players sidelined.

Only in the past few months, with the Cricket Australia versus player's saga to date, has world cricket been exposed to another example of bad administrators failing to deal with cricketers.

As outgoing MCC chairman Mike Brearly recently warned, in an age where the ICC and all international boards have failed to fix the broken international fixtures calendar, while T20 leagues in their own countries continue to gain momentum, it's setting up a clear pathway for players to get away from foolish administrative turmoil, for T20 league riches and sanity.