Richards lambasts WI administrators

Viv Richards, the former West Indies captain, has criticised the manner in which the recent sponsorship dispute was handled, and has urged the administrators involved to leave. The impasse, which stormed Caribbean cricket and threatened to end careers of Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, was resolved with Cable and Wireless terminating their personal contracts with the players, owning to its conflicting nature with Digicel, the team sponsor.

"One of the things which I know for sure, which I can say now," Richards was quoted in The Nation, "is that for the embarrassing period and the way it was played out. I was ashamed and I am certain a lot of us who are associated with West Indies cricket felt the same.

"I believe that it could've been handled much better. We see the disciplined side of things where Lara and Gayle and Sarwan and these people would've been left out in Guyana," he added. "We saw the discipline administered. What about on the other side of the administrators? I cannot see a happy working relationship between board and players at this time.

"I am going to take this opportunity as well to say that I believe if these guys are not given an opportunity to part, you're going to ask them to jump ... The people who were involved in the negotiating business must go, have to go in order for us to have a much better playing field and you can put that in all the capital letters you like."