Jamaica Test - Sorry, no refunds (22 May 1998)

22 May 1998

Sorry, no refunds

The Barbados Nation

THE West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is rejecting compensation requests by tour operators or those England supporters who lost money, or had their holidays curtailed, when the Sabina Park Test was abandoned after 50 minutes of play in January.

The first Test between West Indies and England was abandoned after 10 overs because the surface was deemed dangerous.

"In spite of legal threats from us, the board's lawyers have sent back a letter effectively saying, `sue us if you dare'," Drew Foster, the chairman of International Travel Connection, the biggest tour operator to the Caribbean, told The Times of London.

"Its standpoint is that the decision to call the Test off was taken by the captains and the match referee. So our lawyers, who are representing four travel firms, are saying that negligence would be hard to prove," Foster said.

Secretary of the WICB Andrew Sealy told Weekendsport that the WICB had referred to matter to its legal advisers.

He said that several tour operations had written to the board. "We have no other comment to make," Sealy said. "Our lawyers are dealing with it."

He, however, noted that the WICB had refunded the cost of tickets to spectators at the ill-fated match.

Foster said that people who were on charter flights were in the worst position because they were unable to change them.

"They will not want to go back to West Indies, although I am sure the board will never allow what occurred to happen again," he said. "It was too relaxed and has done itself no favours in terms of staging World Cups in the future."

Meanwhile, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has acted to prevent a repeat of the Sabina Park fiasco which followed the calling off of the second One-Day game in a three-match series between India and Sri Lanka at Indore on Christmas Day last year because the pitch was unfit.

The ICC wants the pitches at both venues inspected before they are allowed to stage another One-Day or Test match.

The issue was the major topic discussed at a two-day meeting of the ICC's recently-formed cricket committee which ended at Lord's on Wednesday.

Chairman of the meeting, Barbadian Sir Clyde Walcott, said in a statement issued yesterday: "The decision of the committee is that before another One-Day International or Test match takes place again at Indore and Kingston, an ICC-approved person will be sent to inspect how the pitches are playing at both venues.

"The square at Kingston has been relaid following the abandoned Test match in January."

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)