March 19, 2005

No Lara

If any of you are going to watch the first test match between South Africa and the West Indies in Guyana, be forewarned. You will not be seeing Mr Brian Charles Lara, world record holder.

You no doubt would have been following the saga surrounding seven players, including Lara, who have individual personal contracts with Cable & Wireless, and how those contracts impact on the West Indies Cricket Board's team sponsorship with Digicel. Unless you've been living under a rock in Jamaica, you know that the two telecommunications companies are fierce competitors.

After advice by their legal counsel, the WICB announced that of the seven, only Brian Lara was eligible for selection because his contract was deemed to be "pre-existing". They gave Lara an invitation yesterday (Friday) and he asked for 24 hours to respond.

He responded today, but not to say yeah or nay. So the board has gone ahead and named 14 players.

No Lara. No Gayle. No Sarwan. No Bravo. Those are the four of the seven who would have been likely to be in the squad. I think who I feel it for most of all is Dwayne Bravo, a young Trinidadian who I've interviewed a couple of times, who just started his career on a great note.

Nothing is to prevent him from coming back into the team after he gets out of his contract (which can happen if they don't play as part of the West Indies team for I think it's 2 months). But dog nyam his supper if one of the "substitutes" does superbly. How would the selectors drop that "sub" for Bravo?

I ask myself the question....Did these players know what they were getting into when they signed? The WICB reported that it had warned them that they were going to sign with a competitor, but they went ahead and signed anyway. Did the players fully consider the impact of their signing with C&W and the WICB signing with Digicel?

Anybody can look 6 months down the road and tell me what the future holds for these players?

Posted by yamfoot at March 19, 2005 08:15 PM