MICHAEL HOLDING has written off West Indies’ hopes in the Test series against England as cricket in the Caribbean enters one of its most critical stages off the field. The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is likely to discover in the coming months whether the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will pursue a £28 million compensation claim for their abandoned tour last October.
With reports the BCCI is also weighing up whether to pull out of their scheduled tour of the Caribbean next year the WICB – which last month announced a £1 million loss for the previous 12 months – faces the prospect of two major financial blows that could result in bankruptcy.
The predicament is a culmination of a dysfunctional relationship between the board and players, who initiated the embarrassing India tour walk-out following a protracted payment dispute also involving the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA).
The fall-out has now not only left the WICB waiting nervously under the BCCI’s legal high ground, but also without most of their star names for the three Tests against England.

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If the current trend continues the one institution that holds the Caribbean together will disappear.

In reply to dayne

Cricket holds the Caribbean together?!?
What date is it

Who are these Eight potential first-choice players who will miss the England test series to play IPL lickit cricket?

In reply to Halliwell
Name something apart from some trading that make the Caribbean people interact with each other. The Caricom body is mostly dysfunctional.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com



I take his point, but looking just for the short term i.e. the England test series, I think the IPL players will be more of a factor for our 1 day team versus the test team. Gayle isn't fit so other than Narine who should make this team on merit? Sammy already retired, Russel not interested, IMHO Holder is a better test alrounder than both of them, toss up with Bravo as an alrounder, he bats well in tests but his bowling has degraded, again I think with Jason Holder we don't lose much.

This series will be won with spin bowling, I hope the selectors are brave enough to play 2 spinners. It would be an awesome surprise after playing up the gamesmanship of getting better pitches.

In reply to Ninetenjack

I agree, the big miss is Narine. Holder is an adequate replacement for Bravo, except for fielding. if we play to our potential and catch well, I think we can win this series.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

If India pulls out of their "scheduled " tour next year then the WICB should have all legal right to reclaim the same from them.
That should square up our debts.

Holding continues to sing for his supper... playing to the gallery of negativism...

There will always be the audience for such... It is the easiest thing to ... He and others of his elk can never place themselves in a position to make things any better .. Why? They have no clue what to do...

So running the familiar rhetoric as often as necessary to stay in limelight will certainly gain popularity...

O well.. typical windies style...

In reply to jacksprat

I'll take a stab at it. Might not be 8...but I can come up with a viable 7


Gayle
Narine
Dwayne Bravo
Russell
Rampaul
Simmons
Sammy



I suspect the 8th is Pollard but he's never played test cricket.

In reply to imusic

Apart from Gayle, none of those is a fixture in the test team.

Of the rest, Bravo, Sammy and Simmons have 'retired' from test cricket and, anyway, haven't featured in years.

Russell played his sole, forgettable, test about 4 years ago, and Rampaul is not a fixture in the test team and is on his customary injury hiatus so did not even play in the just concluded FC season.

In reply to jacksprat

You're indulging in technicalities

If you want to be technical, it can be argued that Gayle is no permanent fixture in any West Indies team outside of the T20 squad given his poor performances for a protracted period of time....the double century against a hapless Zimbabwe at the world cup not withstanding.

That said....Gayle, Narine, Rampaul, Simmons, and Bravo are arguably better players than those who are likely to be selected in their respective positions.

Sammy was up till recently captain in all formats for an extended period of time

Lloyd would have Russell first on his team sheet

The point is....the statement above is NOT an inaccurate statement.

In reply to imusic

Why stop there?

Of course it is not technically inaccurate since the likes of Richards, Holding, Sobers and other potential first-choice players are also unavailable since they are as retired as Sammy, Bravo, Simmons, et al!!!

In reply to imusic

Geezer you are so full of SHIT its not funny.

841 @ 46.72 in his last 12 tests(3 yrs)

...in a MINNOW team like WI

...and not a `fixture`?

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

Holding said this....

“The West Indies needs a structure to promote young players to get to first-class cricket before worrying about how much they should pay them. They must get to that stage being better cricketers rather than better paid cricketers. At the moment the administrators are looking at it from the top rather than the bottom. Until that changes West Indian cricket faces a long wait to change.”

See, that's a positive suggeestion. Will the WICB take that on board? I doubt it....

The WICB need to take a leaf out of the book of the JAAA, which took track and field athletics into the grass-roots schools.

When the players were not getting paid at the first class level the issue was players had to be focusing on other jobs and not on training and practice as they had to make a living to survive. Now that they making a living wage we now hear that it was better they focus on on structure to promote young players.

I am not saying that is not important but you get the impression no matter what they do, something else will always be more important than what is actually happening.

In reply to carl0002

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com
I am still at a loss as to why the WICB did not recoup the cost of the BCCI fine from the players who caused this fine in the first place. The WICB is playing rich by deciding not to get the money back from the players. And you know what they say about people who play rich while they do not even have a pot to piss in!
These bird-brained, self-absorbed, little-talent, prideless guys like Bravo should be made to pay. While they are making their millions, because of them, West Indies cricket is about to go belly up. I hope they are satisfied that they will go down in history as the ones who destroyed West Indies cricket!

The Truth is , that the WICB is now in full control of WIPA . That being the case ;
the Senior Players have no Clout in Wipa ,
and can get more money playing in the IPL .

It seems to me that the WICB won a Pyrrhic
victory . Essentially , it won a battle , but is likely to lose the war . But then
the people in the WICB have never been known to have COMMONSENSE . Booksense , perhaps ; but absolutely no Commonsense .

It is its perpetual lack of Commonsense, that continuously has the WICB skating on
thin Ice . My take is that the fact that it is accountable to No One , and compounded by its colossal Arrogance ,
Commonsense is an extremely rare commodity .

In reply to imusic
Dwayne Bravo should never ever don the West Indies colors again! This knucklehead is one of the biggest symptoms of what's wrong with West Indies cricket!!