Lara, Hooper walk off South Africa tour (3 November 1998)

3 November 1998

Lara, Hooper walk off South Africa tour

The Barbados Nation

The West Indies cricket team is headed for South Africa without Brian Lara and Carl Hooper.

They are unhappy with their fees and have refused to accompany the team on its first full tour of South Africa, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) said in a release last night.

Lara, the captain, and Hooper, his deputy, flew to England from Bangladesh where the West Indies lost the final of the Wills International Cup to South Africa on Sunday.

The West Indies Cricket Board will convene an emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss the matter and a full statement will be made by the president, Pat Rousseau, following that meeting, the board release said.

Lara and Hooper, who both under-performed in the Wills Cup, are being invited to attend that meeting. It was not clear whether that meeting would be in London or at the boards Antigua headquarters.

Rousseau was quoted as saying in the release that the WICB had reached agreement with the cricketers representative body, the West Indies Players Association, on fees for the South Africa tour.

He said that the players action was therefore particularly surprising and went against the instructions issued in writing by team manager Clive Lloyd.

Roland Holder, the secretary of the West Indies Players Association, disputed the boards position that fees had been agreed.

He said it was his understanding that neither Hooper nor Lara planned to pull out of the tour and the association had sought permission for them to return to London for the meeting with the board.

Rousseau said it was his understanding that the rest of the team was travelling to South Africa. The West Indies were scheduled to fly from Dkaha yesterday for the South African tour, which does not start officially until November 10 with a one-day warm-up match.

The squad was expected to engage in a series of pre-tour exercises designed to prepare them for the first full series between the teams following their only previous Test, at Kensington Oval in 1992. That was South Africas first since their readmittance to the international cricket fraternity and was won by the West Indies on a dramatic last day.

The Test was marred by a boycott by Barbadian fans protesting the exclusion of medium-pacer Anderson Cummins.

The five Tests now will be followed by seven One-Day Internationals.

After the turbulence of the past year that included the 3-0 Test series whitewash in Pakistan and the controversy over his elevation to the captaincy over Courtney Walsh, Lara told NATIONSPORT on Sunday that he detected a happy feel within the team which he is leading abroad for the first time.

It was stimulated by the victories over England in both Tests and one-day internationals in the Caribbean last season and has been maintained.

The guys are jelling and want to be a team and a successful team.

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