KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Legendary fast bowler Courtney Walsh says he does not support players’ strikes as a first option and would have preferred negotiations to be fully explored first in order to find a solution to the ongoing bitter impasse between the West Indies players and their union, the West Indies Players Association (WIPA).
Walsh, a West Indies selector, was speaking on Thursday before it was announced that the West Indies one-day squad was abandoning the tour of India over a pay and contracts dispute.
“I heard that there may be a strike and that the team may be returning home. I don’t have the facts, but to me that would be another sad day for West Indies cricket,” Walsh lamented.
“I don’t think you should have out dirty linen in public. It could have been handled a lot better. If efforts were made first and nothing happened, then you sort of take other measures, but if the first thing you want to do is strike, well, I don’t think it’s right.”
Upset by the failure to find a resolution to their pay dispute, West Indies one-day squad announced Friday they were quitting the tour with matches still to be played.
The threat of strike had been hanging since the opening one-dayer in Kochi when the players had to be convinced by Indian officials to take the field.
The players are aggrieved by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement signed between WIPA and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), which they claim results in a drastic reduction in their earnings.
Their pleas to return to the old CBA while a new agreement could be negotiated, went unheeded.
Walsh, who was part of the West Indies team 16 years ago which refused to travel on to South Africa from London in a dispute with the WICB over tour fees, said the regional game was now “past that stage.
“We’ve all had issues with the board, from Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and I was part of the team that had to strike – or didn’t leave England for various reasons,” Walsh pointed out.
“But we have gone past that stage and you want to give everything a try first. All of us want the players to be happy but there is a right way and a wrong way of going about it.”
Walsh, a former West Indies captain, snared 519 wickets from 132 Tests.
