Talks Collapse; WICB pick replacements for Lanka tour

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has received the signed acceptance of 14 players invited on the advice of its selectors, for the tour to Sri Lanka. The latest invitations were accompanied by Match/Tour Contracts, which all the players also have accepted and signed, states Caribbean Cricket.com. the independent voice of West Indies cricket.

The players selected are: Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Denesh Ramdin, Daren Powell, Omari Banks, Kerry Jeremy, Deighton Butler, Sylvester Joseph, Narsingh Deonarine, Dwayne Smith, Tino Best, Jermaine Lawson, Xavier Marshall, Runako Morton, Ryan Ramdass

The West Indies is scheduled to play two Test Matches against the hosts and along with India participate in a triangular one-day tournament following the Test series. Eight of the players invited are in Sri Lanka with the West Indies "A" team while two others are playing in England. The other members of the team along with the technical staff will leave for Sri Lanka on the weekend.

The team manager, Anthony Howard is already in Sri Lanka finalising preparations for a team camp prior to the start of the tour. The technical staff will be led by Head Coach, Bennett King and include assistant coach, David Moore, strength and fitness co-ordinator, Bryce Cavanagh and physiotherapist, Stephen Partridge.

After discussions between the Board and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) broke down on the issue of the sponsorship guarantee fees, the Board decided to issue invitations to the 14 players named.

Originally invitations were issued on 17 June to 13 players with a deadline of 21 June for indication of acceptance. At the time of the deadline, three players had signed the letters. These three players, Chanderpaul, Darren Powell and Ramdin are among the new squad.

Chief Executive Officer of the WICB, Roger Brathwaite said that the Board had taken action to ensure that its commitments under the International Cricket Council's Future Tours Programme would be met.

"We have a responsibility to Sri Lanka, India and the ICC to honour the agreement for this Test Series and One-Day International triangular contest and we will do all in our power to meet that commitment," he said.

"The Board had indicated to WIPA, last October, at the time of the discussions prior to the VB Series in Australia that its demands in relation to sponsorship fees were highly unreasonable and unsustainable given the level of sponsorship which the Board has with Digicel. The Board cannot afford this latest demand by WIPA for US $150,000 given the level of sponsorship fees already paid for this year with the VB Series and the Digicel Home Series and with another tour to Australia scheduled for later this year," he added.

Brathwaite said with the US$50,000 offered by the Board for the Sri Lanka tour, the sponsorship fees so far for the players, with one tour still to come, would already amount to more than 18 percent of the net annual sponsorship figure of US $3.375 million that the Board was scheduled to receive from Digicel.

The CEO said that was why it was imperative that a mechanism be put in place through which a fixed percentage of the net annual sponsorship fee would be paid to the players through the life of the five-year contract. This, he said, would remove the uncertainty surrounding individual tours with respect to the sponsorship fees. Negotiations are taking place between the Board and WIPA towards such an agreement.

Further, Brathwaite said the team could earn as much as US$300,000 for this tour from sponsorship payments alone.

"Apart from the guaranteed sponsorship fees of US$50,000, there is available, a further US $250,000 that can be earned by their performances.

This incentive fits in perfectly with the Board's attempt to move towards a performance based payment structure," he added. In the recent Digicel Home Series 2005, the team earned US$75,000 out of a possible US$612,500 in performance incentives.

The sponsorship fees, he pointed out, would go to the players along with their guaranteed tour fees, which range from approximately US $3,800 and US$1,100 per Test Match and ODI respectively for junior players to approximately US $6,300 and US $1,750 for more senior players.

"A relatively junior player could therefore earn approximately US $32,000 over the six weeks of the tour if the team is successful while a senior player could earn US $40,000," the CEO said. Approximately 40 per cent of the earnings in the case of a junior player and 50 percent for senior players would therefore be guaranteed.

Brathwaite emphasised the WICB's commitment to completing all aspects of the negotiations with WIPA.

"We did everything in our power to conclude these negotiations but unfortunately the Players Association found almost all suggested meeting dates inconvenient," he said.

"It will be recalled that when the Board agreed to the demands of the Players' Association with respect to the tour of Australia for the VB Series, the President had indicated a desire to settle all matters separating the two sides by 31 January in an effort to put an end to this situation where every tour becomes an exercise in brinkmanship. Indeed for this tour to Sri Lanka, we submitted our offer on 2 June and the Players' Association's first responded on 26 June verbally before putting their counter offer in writing on 29 June," he added.

Brathwaite reiterated that the Board had agreed to adjudication on the issue of Clause 5 as well as the intervention of a professional mediator as suggested by Mr Justice Adrian Saunders to the two parties at a meeting on 17 June to which the Board had agreed but to which WIPA had only recently agreed.

"The Board has no problem with a binding arbitration on the issues," he said. "It is more than strange that these proposals come now from WIPA for instant settlement, six months after repeated calls to meet bore no fruit," he added.

"Clause 5 of our Match/Tour Contract does not stop players from having individual endorsement contracts and the insertion of Clause 5b in our view makes this even clearer. All the clause seeks to do is to put order in the process and protect both the player, the Board and the major sponsor," the CEO said.