By Tony Cozier
THROUGH the clouds of confusion that enveloped the West Indies players’ final decision to abandon their tour of India after the fourth One Day International on Friday, a few relevant points are apparent.
First and foremost, as the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), the leadership of the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and Dwayne Bravo and his aggrieved team in India carried on their angry, long-range war in cyber space over the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding/Collective Bargaining Agreement (MoU/CBA), all three clearly failed to appreciate the damaging consequences such a drastic decision was bound to have on them all.
Perhaps they believed that, as in previous similar cases, such as the withdrawal of Packer players from the team in 1978, the standoff at Heathrow Airport prior to the initial 1998-99 tour of South Africa and the strikes before the Sri Lanka and Bangladesh series of 2005 and 2009, that political leaders, or some other third parties, would materialise to soon sort out the issue,