Bottom line could decide venues for England tests

Tony Cozier

By Tony Cozier

PRESSURE from high places in Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda and behind-the-scenes persuasion of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are a couple of the reasons advanced for the West Indies Cricket Board’s reported review of its original choice of Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana for England’s three Tests next year.

WICB president Dave Cameron and his directors would undoubtedly have heard, directly or indirectly, from the relevant governments, from leaders of tourism, from the territorial boards and possibly even from ECB chiefs, if only in polite whispers, of their concern over the original absence of Barbados and Antigua from the Test schedule.

If there have been such interventions, it is for the WICB alone to determine what’s in its best interest.

Welcome as it is, it cannot concern itself with the boost to the relevant economies through the spending on hotels,