A day of intrigue and mystery

A day of confusion in the Caribbean ended with the announcement by the West Indies board (WICB) that it was preparing to select an alternate squad for the forthcoming tour of Sri Lanka following the continued refusal of most of those originally picked to sign the board contract. At the close of play on Monday, only five players had agreed to tour.

Late last night, the WICB issued a press release stating that it had submitted counter proposals to those put forward by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) on June 22, as well as submitting an amendment to the controversial Clause Five of the contract which has been at the heart of the dispute.

The counter proposal, sent by Roger Brathwaite, the board's CEO, to Dinanath Ramnarine, the president of WIPA, on June 25 laid out a four-point plan which clarified existing processes involving the role of Justice Adrian Saunders, the judge appointed last year to arbitrate in the dispute. Crucially, the board's proposal would allow the tour to go ahead while the arbitration process continued, a move WIPA will almost certainly interpret as little more than stalling tactics.

But what is not clear is if the counter proposal included the amendments to Clause Five, as these seem to have emerged after negotiations between an agent representing some of the players and Brathwaite during the course of Monday. Those changes have not materially altered the contract, but have sought to clarify the rights of the players to enter into personal endorsement deals.

But the stumbling block is that those discussions appear to have taken place without the involvement of WIPA, who in the meantime have submitted their own response to Brathwaite's letter of June 25.

The mood of WIPA will hardly have been improved by the board's failed attempt to outflank it by going directly to the A-team players in Sri Lanka to try to get them to agree to replace their senior colleagues.