PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The West Indies Cricket Board has refused to confirm whether marquee batsman Darren Bravo was offered a lower level Grade C central contract for the upcoming year.
The Trinidad NewsDay reported Friday that the 27-year-old leader of the West Indies batting group had been overlooked for a top tier retainer, and given a Grade C contract worth US$100 000.
Earlier this week, the WICB disclosed that Bravo had declined a retainer contract, along with veteran batsman Marlon Samuels and Twenty20 captain Carlos Brathwaite.
WICB communications manager, Carole Beckford, subsequently told the NewsDay the board did not have a policy of releasing information on player contract scales.
“No we wouldn’t give that information. If the players want to reveal their scales that’s fine but we don’t,” she was quoted as saying.
“We have supplied the ranges in the last press release and we thought that was sufficient.”
She continued: “I don’t think it’s important or necessary to give the scale. We have decided that we’re not giving the scale, that the range is sufficient.
“You can assume, or you may [ask the player], if the players want to give what their salaries are specifically (that’s their choice].”
Apart from Samuels, the left-handed Bravo is the most experienced member of the Windies batting line-up, having played 49 Tests and scored 3400 runs at an average of 40.
He is also a treasured member of the one-day team where he has played 94 games and averages 32.
According to the newspaper report, Bravo would have joined the likes of Test novices Jomel Warrican and Alzarri Joseph as players with Grade C contracts.
Grade A is the highest level contract on offer and is worth US$150 000, with Grade B valued at $125 000 and Grade C, $100 000.
Twenty-three year-old opener Kraigg Brathwaite was given a Grade A contract while Test and one-day captain Jason Holder secured a Grade B, the NewsDay reported.
The WICB earlier this week said that the new contracts were “based on performances from October 1, 2015 to September 2016.”
During that period in Tests, Bravo struck two half-centuries on the two-Test tour of Sri Lanka, scored a century and a half-century on the three-Test tour of Australia before struggling against India this year when he managed just 139 runs at 19.
In ODIs, he scored 295 runs at an average of 29.5 during the period under review.