What's behind the WICB rhetoric?
by MARTIN WILLIAMSON
Just as you think things can't get worse in the West Indies, something happens to prove you wrong.
Yesterday's comments by Bruce Aanensen, the WICB's recently-installed chief executive, regarding player contracts for the forthcoming tour of England were about as inflammatory as anything that has gone before. In fairly blunt terms, he effectively sent a message to the team to shut up and do as they were told. It was the rhetoric of a pre-union boss to his disgruntled employees.
Aanensen, who has been in the job for less than a week, has a background steeped in the game. He has also wasted no time in adopting the all-too-familiar confrontational attitude of his new colleagues.
His comments yesterday were not off-the-cuff asides. They followed a board meeting on Sunday and were clearly thought out, and timed to not only fire a warning shot across the players' bows but also to try to seriously undermine their position in the eyes of the fans.
The board clearly feels that after a dismal World Cup the team are weak, and after having its nose bloodied in recent exchanges, it is out for revenge.
The problem is that, yet again, the story it tells doesn't add up. While Aanensen hints that the contractual issues are non negotiable, he fails to mention that for months the board agreed with WIPA, the players' association, that the tour needed a separate contract, only to go back on its word at the last minute.
Tony Deyal, the board's corporate secretary, admitted that it had taken that stand – and there are several emails and board minutes to that effect - but that, with hindsight, it was wrong. So why did he neglect to mention that between January and April? And why did Ken Gordon, the board president, ignore a raft of emails from WIPA through early April asking for an urgent meeting.
Aanensen's statement actually clears that up. He states: "All the documents have been submitted to [the arbitrator]. He says he needs time to study them and that he doesn't believe there is any way that they can have this arbitration prior to the team leaving on the eighth."
In other words, he is giving the impression that the WICB is doing all it can to speed up the process. The reality seems to be that it is doing quite the opposite. As at yesterday, ten days after the two sides agreed to arbitration, Sir David Simmons, the arbitrator, had not received any documentation or submissions from the WICB. Furthermore, Simmons has indicated that as soon as the papers are filed, a decision will follow very quickly.
That, allied to the refusal to respond to requests to address the matter over the last two months, leaves little doubt that the WICB is deliberately spoiling for a fight.
But why? The reason seems to be that the players, who have been appallingly treated for generations by their own board, have recently started to stand their ground, and what's more they dealt some embarrassing blows to the WICB.
The board also thinks that its policy has backed the players into a corner. Either they go and do as they are told, or they refuse and look like money-grabbing mercenaries.
All this has blown up because of the confusion over the exact terms used in the Memorandum of Understanding between the WICB and WIPA. The spirit of the agreement is fairly clear, but, as generations of West Indies players have learned, the board is not known for sticking to anything as intangible as that. They have spotted a loophole and are milking if for all it is worth.
* Martin Williamson is executive editor of Wisden-Cricinfo.