BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Sir Shridath Ramphal will hold his first meeting with the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players’ Association today in Barbados.
Sir Shridath, the former Commonwealth Secretary, agreed to mediate the bitter row that has engulfed West Indies cricket in recent weeks, following a meeting between the two sides with CARICOM Chairman and Guyana President Bharat Jagdeo.
The WICB and the WIPA will meet at an undisclosed location in the island in the morning to start to unravel the dispute.
Under the terms of the Mediation Agreement reached under President Jagdeo, the two sides have agreed to be “mindful of the mandates of their respective bodies, but conscious also of their responsibilities to the people of the West Indies and the international sport of cricket”.
But it remains to be seen if the WICB will give some ground, after they decided not to budge on their original 30-member provisional squad for the ICC Champions Trophy later this year.
As part of the Mediation Agreement, the players that withdrew from the recent two Tests against Bangladesh to protest contract issues agreed to make themselves fully available for selection.
But the WICB on Friday confirmed that the 30 players announced earlier in the week to prepare for the Champions Trophy which is to be staged in South Africa from September 22 to October 5 would remain.
CMC understands that the International Cricket Council, the sport’s World governing body and organisers of the Champions Trophy, are willing to allow West Indies to change their provisional squad for the competition.
“They want the best players available, and recognise the extenuating circumstances, and they are quite willing to allow the WICB to make the changes,” a source told the CMC Sports Wire on Saturday.
The majority of the 30-member provisional squad comprises several inexperienced players who contested the Bangladesh series.
It however, has been boosted with the addition of fast bowlers Fidel Edwards and Daren Powell.
The WICB’s announcement on Friday ended speculation over the possible re-inclusion of the first-choice players for the Champions Trophy.
The withdrawal of the leading players resulted in a makeshift side being hastily assembled for the two-Test series against Bangladesh which they lost 0-2 to hand the Tigers their first overseas Test series victory ever.
