By Tony Cozier
In LONDON
It may be the shortest of all the series between the West Indies and England, and only a fill-in at that.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and others may not be comfortable with it but the Wisden Trophy, presented following the memorable 1963 series between the teams by Wisden Cricketers Almanac, the game’s bible, is at stake in the current two Tests.

Chief Executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board David Collier said here yesterday that his WICB counterpart, the recently resigned Donald Peters, had agreed in negotiations over the series that the trophy, regained by the West Indies through their 1-0 triumph in the Caribbean in March, would be contested.

WICB president Julian Hunte was not so sure.

“So far as I’m concerned, I don’t believe it was discussed,” he stated yesterday from St Lucia after returning from watching the West Indies lose the first Test at Lord’s last week by 10 wickets.

He said he would ask Steve Camacho, the former, long-serving CEO who was drafted in to again fill the post on a temporary basis after Peters’ exit, to raise the matter with Collier.

Camacho, in London primarily for his annual health check, was also at Lord’s for the Test. He returns to Antigua today.

As far as Collier is concerned, the matter is already settled.

“In all our media releases and statements, we have stated that the trophy is on the line,” he said. “We felt that the series would be devalued if it was not at stake.

“It is true that it is only over two Tests but the International Cricket Council (ICC) recognizes it and others like it as a proper series.”

England have played similarly short series against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and the West Indies have had series of two Tests against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

Yet West Indians are not the only ones to recognize that the arrangement devalues the Wisden Trophy, an iconic prize, rather than the hastily arranged series.

Mike Selvey, the former England swing bowler who is now cricket writer for the Guardian newspaper, questioned the reasoning.

“England are now on the way to regaining the Wisden Trophy they relinquished in the Caribbean less than two months ago which, however well they play to do so would seem unfair to West Indies,” he wrote after England’s victory at Lord’s.

“The winter series was hard fought over four Tests, and to have to hand it back, as well they might now, after two games in zippy spring conditions in a contest that is only on because West Indies are bailing the England and Wales Cricket Board out of a hole, is an injustice,” he added.

Injustice it might be but the only way now for the West Indies to keep the trophy, which they held for 27 years between 1973 and 2000 before taking it back two months ago, is to win the final Test, starting at Chester-le-Street on Thursday.