Lara and Hooper on strike (3 November 1998)

3 November 1998

Lara and Hooper on strike

By Garth Wattley

The start of the long-awaited, historic tour of South Africa is just about a week away. But already the West Indies cricket team has hit a crisis.

A late evening release by the West Indies Cricket Board put it starkly:

"Captain of the West Indies cricket team, Brian Lara and vice-captain Carl Hooper have not gone to South Africa from Bangladesh as planned. They have voiced concern over the fees for the tour of South Africa and have instead gone to England."

And in a quick response to the developing crisis, the WICB has convened an emergency meeting for tomorrow to discuss the matter. Both Lara and Hooper have been invited to attend the meeting. The bombshell decision of the Windies team leaders has caught the regional community by surprise.

"That is news to me," responded senior team selector Joey Carew when contacted last evening. The move by Lara and Hooper has stunned West Indies Board president Pat Rousseau.

Rousseau, according to the release, said that the WICB had reached an agreement with the players' representative body, the West Indies Players' Association, on fees for the South Africa tour. That, said Rousseau, made the move by the two senior players "particularly surprising" and it "went against the instructions issued in writing by the manager Clive Lloyd."

According to Rousseau, it is his understanding that at the present time, the rest of the team is on their way to South Africa to start the five-Test, seven-ODI series.

Reon King, Keith Arthurton and Phil Simmons are not in the 16-member squad for the three and a half month tour. Veteran pacers Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, a last-minute defaulter from the Bangladesh outing, young T&T batsman Daren Ganga, Dinanath Ramnarine and Jimmy Adams are scheduled to meet the team in South Africa.

The First Test is scheduled to start in Johannesburg on November 26 but the first tour assignment is a One-day match against a Nicky Oppenheimer XI carded to begin in Randjiesfontein next Tuesday. The dramatic turn of events comes at the start of a week in which Lara's side was outplayed on the field by Hansie Cronje's South Africans in the final of the Wills Trophy Mini World Cup final. Having been given a rollicking start by opener Philo Wallace's first One-day International century-103 with five sixes and 11 fours-the Windies were kept in check by the South Africans and eventually dismissed for 245. Despite a fairly early setback, South Africa eventually cruised to victory by four wickets.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)