The West Indies Cricket Board and the players who decided to pull out of their tour of India with the last one-day international, a Twenty20 and three Tests still to be played could find themselves on a very sticky wicket, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India determined to claim compensation for substantial financial losses.
In response to West Indies’ pull-out over a pay dispute between board and players, Sri Lanka Cricket has already agreed to send its team across to play five ODIs, starting on 1 November, but with England reaching the island that month for a one-day series, there is no time to squeeze in any Tests.
As things stand, it will be the second time in two decades – there were no home games between March 2006 and November 2007 – that an Indian home season has not featured a Test match. Star TV paid £389m for six years of television rights and will be incensed that an already curtailed home season – India head to Australia in the last week of November and will be in Oceania till the end of their World Cup campaign in March – has been further shortened.
At the International Cricket Council table, India and West Indies had been allies for quite a while. The WICB’s vote was one of those that helped ensure that Asia hosted the 2011 World Cup. Australia and New Zealand were favourites but a BCCI-led charm offensive led to a 7-3 vote in their favour. Among the inducements were trips of the Caribbean and also an invite to West Indies to be part of a triangular series in Kuala Lumpur in September 2006.
That special relationship and hopes of more dates on the future tours programme now lie in tatters. “We have suffered huge losses due to the decision of the West Indies to pull out of the tour,” said Sanjay Patel, the BCCI secretary, to the Press Trust of India. “We are going to claim all the damages and pursue the matter with ICC. The working committee members will have dialogue on this and after that we may consider to not pursue further FTP programmes with West Indies.”
India are next scheduled to tour the Caribbean in February-March 2016. The first half of that year will feature a World Twenty20 and also the IPL, and it would come as no surprise if the BCCI’s retribution involved a cancellation of that tour.
For the moment, there is some sympathy for the West Indies players whose reservations about the new pay structure heard were not even heard by the board but, with IPL contracts now renewed on a yearly basis, there will be some nervous individuals on the flights back to the Caribbean.
The WICB gets 10% of whatever its IPL players make but it is unlikely that the BCCI’s ire will singe players such as Dwayne Bravo (Chennai Super Kings), Kieron Pollard (Mumbai Indians) and Chris Gayle (Royal Challengers Bangalore). The IPL franchises are not easy to dictate to and they have next to no interest in weakening their squads by leaving out players who are central to their plans, in addition to being popular with sponsors and advertisers.
