PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad,  CMC – CARICOM’s chairman Barrat Jagdeo will attempt to broker a solution to the bitter impasse between West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association, when he meets with the squabbling parties today.

Barrat Jagdeo

Guyana’s President Jagdeo is expected to hold separate meetings with the WIPA and the WICB in Guyana to hammer out a deal to end the dispute that has resulted in the first choice West Indies players refusing to represent the regional team in the two-Test series against Bangladesh.

WIPA announced last week they had sought CARICOM’s intervention in the impasse.

“The West Indies Players Association (WIPA) had asked President Jagdeo as chairman of CARICOM to intervene in the current dispute and as a matter of courtesy he has also extended an invitation to the WICB to meet with him,” Gerard Pinard, a member of the WICB’s negotiating committee, revealed yesterday.

“We are not meeting together with WIPA. We will meet at noon and they will meet at another time during the day.

Pinard said the WICB hopes the meeting could help in solving the dispute which has severely crippled the regional game.

“When the President of Guyana and the chairman of CARICOM invites you to a meeting you have to go and meet with him,” said Pinard.

“We are hoping for the best to come out of this situation and we will be going into that meeting with a totally open mind.”

The WICB will be represented by WICB president Dr. Julian Hunte, vice-president Dave Cameron, lawyer Alana Medford, and members of the negotiating committee Pinard and attorney Derek Ali.

There was no indication of who would represent WIPA at the meeting.

WIPA have cited pay and contract issues as the reason behind the players’ industrial action.