BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Sir Shridath Ramphal has identified August as a deadline to broker a deal in the bitter dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association, which has crippled the regional team and left its top-tier players in the wilderness.
The man charged with the responsibility of mediating the impasse said it was critically important an urgent solution was found, so cricket in the region could return to a state of normalcy.
Following his first meeting with the feuding parties on Sunday, Sir Shridath said he believed the deadline would be possible as both sides were keen on moving swiftly towards resolution.
“I and the parties, as they were with me together over those many hours, share that view that we’ve got to get on with this quickly,” Sir Shridath told CMC Sports on Monday.
“My own timeline – although the meeting hasn’t put a time on it – my own personal hope is that we can see this process through within August.
“By the end of August, this should be a process done and put behind us with a line drawn in the sand and with the future for West Indies cricket and the whole region, and indeed international sport [settled].”
Sir Shridath, a former Commonwealth Secretary-General, was appointed to mediate the dispute following a meeting between WIPA, the WICB and CARICOM’s chairman, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo in Georgetown last Tuesday.
The meeting ended a fierce stand-off between WIPA and the Board, which had seen the first choice Windies players refuse to play in the Bangladesh series, citing pay and contract issues as their main grievances.
Sir Shridath said the issue of West Indies cricket was too important for the mediation process to be treated lightly.
“In Guyana, under the agreement that President Jagdeo brokered as chairman of CARICOM, they called on the parties to proceed to mediation – in the language of the agreement – with expedition and I can understand why they did that,” Sir Shridath said.
“West Indies cricket cannot afford a long stalemate which is the situation we are in now.
“These issues that so trouble the game in the West Indies, trouble the game in the world and I’m sure that Britain and Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India – they are all looking … at this intimate process and hoping that the West Indies will get its act together and resume its prominent place in world cricket.”
The impasse forced regional selectors to hastily assemble a makeshift squad for the Bangladesh series and select a largely inexperienced 30-man provisional squad for the ICC Champions Trophy in September.
Though the first choice players have subsequently made themselves available, the WICB have opted not to revise the provisional squad.
