West Indies cricketers threaten to disrupt India tour due to pay issues

In an extraordinary turn of events, the West Indies cricket team's tour of India was thrown into jeopardy after the aggrieved visiting side threatened to go on strike over an acrimonious pay dispute with its parent body.

Barely a day before the series gets underway in Kochi with the first ODI, the cricket team led by Dwayne Bravo shot off a letter to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the Players Association, threatening to go on strike if the matter was not resolved.

The team had on Monday skipped the practice session, the pre-match press conference and the trophy unveiling ceremony as it held negotiations to diffuse the crisis after being handed contracts which would see their pay go down by approximately 75 per cent.

The new contracts were given to the players after they reached India.

The players are also disgruntled with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) president and chief executive Wavell Hinds for agreeing to the terms without consulting them.

Both the BCCI and the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) however, insisted that Wednesday's match would go ahead as per schedule.

"The BCCI is not bothered about their internal issues.But as far as we are concerned the match is on," Board Secretary Sanjay Patel said.

KCA secretary TC Mathew said, "The match will take place at scheduled time. All the rumours of alleged boycott that are floating around are wrong."

According to reports, the players claimed Hinds "hoodwinked" them and did not take their inputs while signing a new MoU with West Indies Cricket Board last month, under which they would suffer a significant cut in their pay.

In a strongly-worded letter to WIPA and WICB, Bravo wrote: "We wish to make it very clear that should the players be forced to take matters into their our own hands, we will not hesitate to take the appropriate action as we see fit. We will hold you and the WIPA Board, who support this process, liable."

"The players are of the view that as a matter of principle, we should not accept these conditions whereby we are being asked to play a series against India without any certainty of what are our obligations and what we will be playing for." 
 

"...the players here in India are under tremendous stress and the team morale is at an all-time low. We believe that this present WIPA Executive under your leadership has failed to properly represent the best interest of ALL the players," Bravo wrote.

"Many are questioning whether there is now some "special relationship" between the WICB and WIPA which may be good for some but has not taken into account the whole picture resulting in what may be seen as embarrassing and demonizing some players who represent the WI, yet signalling to public that this new purported agreement (MOU) is in the best interest of West Indies Cricket."

"As indicated in our earlier correspondence the reduction is unacceptable and as one of our members put it 'it is ridiculously insane' when one considers the massive cuts based on the information we have received."

Bravo also asked whether the WICB officials would agree to such massive pay cuts for themselves.

In response, the WICB issued a press release tendering its apology "to the fans, the BCCI and all other stakeholders should the first ODI be disrupted as a result of player action.

The Board said that the "the WICB is making every effort to ensure that it fulfils all its commitments and that cricket is played."

As per the new MoU, the players "understand" their Test, ODI and T20 fees "have been decreased by 75 per cent", that they will receive "no compensation for the use of our rights.

That has been decreased by 100 per cent" and their ICC fees have been "decreased by close to 100 per cent".

The players said they were being kept in the dark about the "purported agreement". Bravo and his team-mates insisted that they want the old structure back as the new one is "significantly different from what we received in the past."