WICB to expand contracted player pool

The West Indies Cricket Board has proposed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which 99 regional cricketers will be awarded contracts. The WICB wants the new MoU, which also deals with player salaries, to be in place till September 2012. The board is still waiting for the WIPA, with whom it is involved in a bitter dispute, to respond to the new proposal.

The decision to expand the pool of contracted cricketers was taken at the WICB's annual general meeting in Antigua on Sunday. According to a WICB media release, 15 players will receive annual retainer contracts and an additional 84 players (14 players per WICB affiliate) will get newly introduced territorial contracts each year.

The board said it had allocated US$800,000 for the regional contracts and added that non-contracted players will get a 'pay for play' contract.

"We want this new agreement in effect by October 1 this year so that we can plan for the future," WICB president Julian Hunte said. "We need to establish the framework for managing the relationship with WIPA and the players to ensure that we live up to our obligations and be able to manage the performance of players."

Hunte also said the WICB had worked on 45 of the 67 recommendations of the PJ Patterson report. One of its major recommendations was restructuring the WICB into a two-tiered structure, which Hunte did not accept. "I am still unable to see where is the inherent solution to all our problems in West Indies cricket by having a new layer at the top to own and oversee West Indies cricket," he said.