Who's behind the war?

Brian Lara recently expressed the frustration that all parties must feel in the still unresolved contractual dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA).

"It's sad that West Indies are playing, I'm fully fit, [Ramnaresh] Sarwan is fully fit, Chris Gayle is fully fit and we [were]) not out there playing, hopefully that can be sorted out," Lara said. "I just want to play cricket really. It's very important for me and for West Indian cricket that I'm out on the field playing."

For a year, the WICB and the WIPA have locked horns over various match/tour contracts, all subject to a disagreeable Clause 5. In November 2004, the players selected for the camp before touring Australia for the triangular VB Series refused to sign contracts at the very last minute and that was enough ground gained to allow the tour to proceed.

Earlier this year, the West Indies sent a different kind of team to Sri Lanka for the Test and tri-nation one-day series after the contract disputes could not be resolved. This time around, Ken Gordon, the new President of the WICB, has made it his goal to ensure that the show goes on, and a "full-strength" team has been selected for the Australia tour despite continued disagreements.

The disputed clause has been sent to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) with an undertaking that the West Indies board and the players will accept their recommendations as binding. The understanding is that this recommendation may even be to hand it over to an independent arbitrator if, after ten days, no agreeable position is found.

The disputes really started since Digicel replaced Cable & Wireless, the long-time sponsors, as the main sponsor for West Indies cricket in a changeover that has led to a commission of enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the new deal. The findings of the Sponsorship Negotiations Review Committee have been adroitly waylaid by WICB accusations that the report was inappropriately distributed, and that the conclusion reached by its chairman regarding the legality of the Digicel/WICB contract was incorrect. The chairman, Justice Anthony Lucky has since severed all ties with the WICB, and the matter is trundling into obscurity as emerging issues contrive to distract attention. Yet, the epicentre of the ongoing contract dispute is located within, and the forecast for that environment continues to be hazy.

"The war is a telecommunication war. I don't really understand everything, but I just want to play cricket really," said Brian Lara to the Australian press, revealing how confusing the situation had become to cricketers.

But is it really just a telecommunication war or does it have deeper, political roots? It is well known that Digicel, a company formed to enter the Caribbean market, found powerful political allies in Jamaica, and that Cable & Wireless had its wires cut in that market. Over the past few months, Caribbean politicians have taken turns snapping at each other over various levels of involvement in the cricket disputes. Back off, said Owen Arthur, the Barbados Prime Minister, a message that seemed subtly aimed at his Jamaican counterpart, PJ Patterson.

"A few thousands of dollars should not be enough to stop us from seeing a common purpose of the only thing, really, that has effectively held the Caribbean people not only together, but the only thing that has given us a global sense of accomplishment for more than 50 years.

"Obviously, the game has been, in many respects, destabilised to some degree because we can't properly plan," said Arthur over the weekend, again chiding those who would break up the union for some dollars.

While Caricom had assembled a prime ministerial cricket committee to offer assistance in the dispute, their advice has largely been ignored, and indeed, Arthur had even scolded its chairman, Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, for overstepping his bounds. There are certain things that should be left to the WICB to decide, was Arthur's warning, an attempt no doubt to reduce leverage from other political powers.

The WICB and WIPA have conceded that they are not getting anywhere with this impasse, but have finally decided not to take it to the wire yet again. They've agreed to accept the recommendations, to make them retroactive, and most importantly, to allow the players to do what they need to do to remain competitive: play cricket. For this to work, everyone needs to keep their end of the bargain.