Settle suit and play on

Drop the case or settle it out of court for the good of West Indies cricket.

That appeal to Desmond Haynes, former West Indies Test star, and to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has come from Clive Lloyd, former captain and manager of the West Indies team.

Lloyd, a powerful left-hander in his heyday, told SunSport there was a definite role for Haynes to play in the future development of West Indies cricket and until the case was dropped or settled it would stand in the way of him playing that role.

Lloyd said that immediately after he returned to West Indies cricket as manager, he tried to bring the two sides together but his efforts at mediation failed.

'Pat Rousseau [WICB president] told me afterwards that I had tried my best' but the hard fact was that Haynes didn't drop the case and the West Indies Board didn't settle it either, he pointed out.

'I thought he would have settled it or something,' Lloyd said. 'I don't think we need to get into this court case situation, with money and so on and so forth. I felt that they could have had an amicable situation and let's get on with the game. Desmond probably has a different view and the WICB has a different view. We don't need court cases.'

Lloyd contends that Haynes, Gordon Greenidge and Sir Vivian Richards must become more involved in the affairs of the game in the Caribbean if the young talented players in the region were to get the help and guidance they needed to return the West Indies to their glory day in the international cricket circuit.

'We need all of them,' declared Lloyd, who flew into New York from Barbados on Thursday to visit his mother, sister and other relatives.

He said the board and Haynes should find a way to reach an amicable monetary settlement.

Haynes sued the board several years ago after a dispute arose over his eligibility to play for the West Indies.

'I thought that the intelligent thing to do was to settle at some figure or whatever it was, and everybody would have been happy and we would have looked at the bigger picture and he would have been involved with our cricket,' stated Lloyd.

'But, there are probably more things to it than I know. I was just looking at it from the point of view of a simple situation and what was better for West Indies cricket and all concerned.'

Lloyd pointed out that his mediation efforts took him to Norfolk in England and were continued in Jamaica when current and former West Indies players had assembled in Kingston for a special reception organised by the Board.

'He [Desmond] flew his lawyers down and they had a chat again there but nothing materialised, so I was pretty frustrated,' said Lloyd. 'I tried to do something and wasn't getting anywhere.'

Lloyd was the most successful captain in West Indies cricket history, having led the team to more victories than any other previous skipper.