If I was a West Indian cricketer with an IPL contract who had just pulled out of the Indian tour, I would be nervous. In order to appear in the IPL, each player must be issued with a no-objection certificate by his own board of control. If the WICB is of a mind to teach its employees a lesson, it has it right there, in the palm of its hand. But it won't. It is one thing to mess with the BCCI's tour schedules, quite another to play loose with the IPL.
Frankly, the WICB took an almighty gamble allowing the players to tour India with contractual issues hanging over them. Perhaps the board had taken advantage of Wavell Hinds - a pussycat compared to his predecessor as head of the players association, Dinanath Ramnarine - in the recent negotiations and resulting MOU and figured the players needed its support more than vice versa. Big mistake. Huge. Though the players' international performances do not justify inflated sums, they are due an income that is requisite to their commitment. The deal struck by Hinds appeared to be soft.
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