-says Ramnarine
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – West Indies Players Association (WIPA) chief, Dinanath Ramnarine has defended out-of-favour West Indies batsman Lendl Simmons against claims he arbitrarily failed to attend a scheduled meeting with chairman of selectors Clyde Butts.
Ramnarine said Thursday that while Simmons did not attend the meeting, he had not been given adequate notice by Butts.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) said earlier this week that Simmons had agreed to meet with Butts to discuss his future but “failed to do so, and had offered no explanation for his non-attendance either to Butts or to the WICB.” Speaking at his office here, Ramnarine said that meeting was never properly organised and it would have been difficult for Simmons to attend the meeting on the short notice he was given.
“Butts called Simmons around 3pm on May 31 and said he would like to meet with him at 5pm, to discuss his issues,” Ramnarine explained.
“Simmons then told him he had a family matter to deal with and could meet (Butts) at 7pm. Even in the event that Simmons did not have a family matter, he would have been hard-pressed to come into town for 5pm since he lives in Arima.
“Butts then told him that he cannot meet (Simmons) at 7pm, as he has to leave at 6pm for the airport. Butts then told him that the coach Ottis Gibson would call him and Simmons is still waiting on that call.”
Ramnarine said if the WICB wanted to meet with Simmons so urgently, there had been sufficient time to do so since then, and contended that the regional governing body for the sport had continued to operate in an ad hoc manner.
He also hit back at the WICB over their assertion that WIPA has refused to agree to a meeting and had called instead for both entities to head into a mediation process.
“The WICB is saying WIPA doesn’t want to meet with them but this far from the truth. Any right thinking person would see that it was WIPA who asked for a meeting,” Ramnarine argued.
“They are saying that we want to take the matter to mediation but they must realise that the time for ‘good faith’ negotiations has passed. We try to operate within a framework and they know nothing about that type of operation. “After we sent the letter to the CEO (Ernest Hilaire) trying to get information as to the status with Simmons, they had seven days to meet for ‘good faith’ negotiations and they missed that. “The next step according to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is mediation and if they fail to abide by this, then we would have no choice but to go to arbitration.”
The latest war of words between WIPA and the WICB has come as a result of Simmons, the dashing 25-year-old who has been overlooked since the one-day tour of Australia earlier this year in February.
Since then, the right-hander has been also ignored for West Indies senior and A-Team squads, forcing WIPA to take up the player’s cause.
WIPA, the regional players’ union, said it was also dealing with similar matters pertaining to the omission of Ramnaresh Sarwan and Narsingh Deonarine.