May slams the WICB over non-selection of main team

The chief executive officer of the Federation of International Cricket Associations, Tim May, has said that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) was ‘devaluing’ the status of the Champions Trophy by sending in a second string team.

The WICB and the players’ association have been involved in a bitter feud about contracts of the players, and the players had stepped out of playing in the Bangladesh series. However, subsequently, they had made themselves available for selection for the Champions Trophy, but the WICB retorted back by not picking them and selecting a second string side instead.

May said that the pain of selecting a third-rate side would be shared by all the other cricketing nations as well. He added that they were violating the contractthat the WICB had with the ICC of selecting their best ever team for all thetournaments.

After the Champions Trophy, the West Indies will tour the Aussies in November, and with the resolution nowhere in sight, there is every likelihood that the same second-string side will tour Australia as well. May has blamed the board for using the Champions Trophy side as a bargaining chip and not selecting their best team instead.

May also added that even if the WICB selected the best possible team, there is a reasonable chance that the West Indian side may not want to play the series because they were fed up with the kind of treatment that the cricket board had meted out to them.

In the meantime, the WICB has come out with their explanation on why the former coach of West Indies, John Dyson was fired from the position of the head coach. They said that the coach had refused to sign the contract with them for the entire duration of 18 months despite benefitting from exactly the same remuneration of the contract. Conde Riley, a board director of WICB, said that there was no option but to sack the coach of the side because he hadn’t signed the contract after having repeated discussions with him.

He said that “It is a very unsafe position to be in when people don't sign contracts and you are paying them in accordance with the provisions of the contract. When an employee has not signed a contract for 18 months, he cannot be serious and therefore you don't have to have a reason, it's a straightforward case.”

Ironically, it is the same contracts dispute that has ensured that the mainstream players are out of the national team as well!