The West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) has reacted with "dismay" to the West Indies Cricket Board's (WICB) response to its proposal for a longer first-class season. The WICB's CEO Ernest Hilaire had, last week, announced a shortened format for the first-class competition starting in January.

"WIPA is dismayed at the response of the Chief Executive Officer of the WICB, Dr. Ernest Hilaire, to its continued recommendation that the Regional Four-Day Tournament should remain two rounds instead of one, as the Board has recently announced," a statement released by the WIPA said.

The tournament will feature seven rounds of matches including day-night fixtures. Though the first-class season last year was expanded to 14 rounds and the fees for players and officials increased despite the absence of a sponsor, Hilaire said a similar format for the upcoming year was unsustainable due to limited financial resources.

The WIPA claimed the decided format was insufficient for adequate preparation when taking on teams from other countries, where the first-class season was longer in duration. "The main thrust of WIPA's position is the insufficiency of cricket being played in this tournament which, therefore, does not provide for adequate preparation for participation against opponents from other countries whose state and county competitions are of much longer durations," the WIPA said.

The WIPA expressed concern at the discrepancy in the volume of cricket to be played by West Indies in relation to other countries. "In fact, our investigations have revealed that West Indies will now be playing the least amount of cricket of all ICC full member countries," the statement said. "The WICB prepared the West Indies team for the just concluded Test tour of Australia with four one-day games and will follow up with seven first-class games and no Twenty20 tournament for an ODI tour of Australia followed by the home Series. There are other obstacles preventing the senior West Indies team from competing on a level playing field with cricketers from other ICC full member countries but lack of preparation should not be one."

Hilaire, in his statement last week, had accused the WIPA of creating the context for a public fight with the board and undermining the compromise reached after a bitter contracts dispute. He added that the truncated first-class season, though not ideal, gave an opportunity for the board to invest in other projects such as the A team programme, developmental tours and the High Performance Centre.

But the WIPA has responded strongly to the criticism. "The WICB's media statement, issued over the weekend, is unfortunately loaded with inaccuracies and innuendos, which, if left uncorrected, could convey to an unsuspecting public the impression that WIPA has been demonstrating a certain degree of unreasonableness in its stance on the duration of the regional tournament.

In keeping with its commitment to transparency and acknowledgement of the West Indian public as a key stakeholder in West Indies cricket, WIPA issued a 15 point plan following its Board Meeting of December 3rd last which included its views on the Regional Four Day Tournament. This is a matter of scheduling which needs to be agreed to by both WICB and WIPA."