Tour De Farce: Ipl Saps Windies
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 17, 2008
CASH over country, the greatly feared scenario many thought would be created by the Indian Premier League, has already materialised with Australia's tour to the West Indies in danger of becoming a farce.
Three of the Caribbean's best cricketers may miss the first two Tests of the series due to IPL duties, leaving a substandard team to face the world's No.1 Test outfit.Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan will not be stopped by the West Indies Cricket Board from playing in the IPL finals should their sides qualify, even though it overlaps with the three-Test series against Australia in May and June.West Indies cricket chief Donald Peters said the stars were entitled to earn their hefty paydays from the 44-day Twenty20 tournament because of the relatively paltry sums on offer to play for the West Indies, and he conceded that if he tried to block the trio, they would go anyway. "We are aware that we may lose the players for the first two Tests against Australia, and I asked the selectors to be cognisant of this and to try to put batsmen in the side that could replace Gayle, Chanderpaul, and Sarwan," Peters said.IPL organisers said this situation would never arise because all players would need No-Objection Certificates from their boards before they could compete in the Indian tournament, but the reality is that financially weak boards fear restricting their best talents from earning big dollars."I have the NOCs for the players, and I have to release the players, but I am not going to not release the players because they would go anyway," said Peters, who is pushing for an annual IPL window in the international calendar."Given the amount of money involved, it certainly destabilises the infrastructure of cricket. It's not fair to the players, and it's not fair to the national teams."While Cricket Australia has told its players international matches take precedence over the IPL, the West Indies board appears powerless to make similar demands. Peters said there would be a revolt if he threatened to cancel the national contracts of the three players, conceding if they walked, the Windies would be plunged into deeper crisis."West Indies and New Zealand are two of the smallest cricket nations, and it will hurt us the most if our best players leave to play in the IPL because it's hard to replace three of your best players. But we have to find a solution," Peters said.CA spokesman Peter Young said: "Our view is unambiguous: international cricket takes precedence, and we believe it should be about the best playing the best." The Windies languish at eighth in the world Test rankings, only above Bangladesh since Zimbabwe has been excluded due to lack of matches. To have the Windies' captain Gayle, most consistent batsman Chanderpaul, and former skipper Sarwan missing from the batting line-up debilitates the team. Australia are already favoured to whitewash the hosts.The three batsmen were the only Windies players offered IPL contracts, with Gayle fetching a mammoth $US800,000 ($852,000) a year from Kolkata, while Sarwan (Mohali) is on $US225,000 and Chanderpaul (Bangalore) on $US200,000. They will be paid on a game-by-game basis so if their sides make the finals, there would be massive amounts of money on offer.The inaugural tournament runs from April 18 to June 1, so the trio would be able to play in the final Test in Barbados from June 12-16.Australian Test opener Phil Jacques said he was not concerned about the possibility of playing an understrength side. "We're fielding a full-strength side as far as I'm aware and we'll be trying our best. [The West Indies board] have the right to make those choices. It doesn't affect me."One-day pace bowler Nathan Bracken said the issue may be avoided if the trio weren't picked by their franchises. "Under the rules you can only field four international players per game so they might not even get selected," he said.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
