(Trinidad Guardian) At 5 pm on Friday evening, West Indies cricket stood at the crossroads, however six hours later, there was a clear way forward out of the current mess. The meeting convened by Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves and included Grenadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Dave Cameron, players Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin, as well as their legal representative Ralph Thorne, was very successful.
Coming out of the near six-hour meeting, the players have been given the assurance by the WICB that they will not be discriminated against or victimised for aborting the Indian tour. The West Indies players pulled out of their tour of India after the fourth ODI, citing problems with their pay structure. This has caused the WICB major embarrassment and also a lawsuit worth so far US$41.97M from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). All the players, who made that ill-fated tour, will be available for selection to the tour of South Africa. The contentious Memorandum of Understand (MOU), signed between the WICB and the president of the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) Wavell Hinds will now return to the negotiating table.
The players have been given the assurance that they would now have a say concerning their proposed pay cuts and it was also agreed that WIPA and Wavell Hinds will continue to represent the interests of the players. Concerning the damages bill slapped by the BCCI on the WICB and the fact that they have suspended all bi-lateral tours, it was agreed at the Hyatt meeting that a task force set up by the parties will deal with this matter. The three-man task force will include former cricketer and former Barbadian government minister Sir Wes Hall, former Barbados Attorney General, Sir David Simmons and Senior Counsel Kenneth Lalla from T&T.
The task force will go to work immediately on dealing with the demands of the BCCI because the WICB has been given 15 days to formally write to the BCCI, indicating to them the steps that will be taken to re-pay the damages. The rumours of calls by the BCCI for president Cameron to step down did not gain much prominence during the session and at the end of the meeting the Jamaican was still in charge of the regional cricket board.
THE HYATT ACCORD
I – WICB and WIPA to re-negotiate MOU.
II – Task force set up to deal with BCCI claims.
III – Players who aborted tour will not be discriminated against or victimised.
THE TASK FORCE
SIR WES HALL – is a Barbadian former cricketer and politician. Hall played 48 Test matches for the West Indies from 1958 to 1969. After his playing days Hall entered Barbadian politics, serving in both the Barbados Senate and House of Assembly and appointed Minister of Tourism in 1987. He was also involved in the administration of West Indies cricket as a selector and team manager and served as president of the West Indies Cricket Board from 2001 to 2003. Hall was later ordained a minister in the Christian Pentecostal Church.
SIR DAVID SIMMONS – Assumed office as the 12th Chief Justice of Barbados on January 1, 2002. Sir David was born on April 28, 1940 and was educated at the Lodge School. Between 1960 and 1965 he studied Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, graduating in 1963, with the LLB (Hons.) degree and in 1965, the Master of Laws degree (LLM). From 1976 he served continuously for 25 years in the Parliament of Barbados and in 2001, he retired from active politics. Appointed twice as Attorney-General of Barbados, first, from 1985 to 1986, and from 1994 to 2001. Sir David also acted as Prime Minister of Barbados on many occasions between 1994 and 2000.
KENNETH LALLA SC – Is a lawyer and politician from T&T, formerly the Democratic Labour Party Member of Parliament for Couva. He founded KR Lalla and Company and has been in practice for the past 50 years. He has had an extensive commercial and administrative law practice. Lalla sat as the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Public Service Commission and Defence Commission and served as a member of the judicial and legal service and a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice Legal Service Commission.
