Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and
Dwayne Bravo may not get WICB NOCs to play in Australia's Big Bash
The availability of West Indian trio- Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo –for Australia's domestic Big Bash T20 tournament has become doubtful after Cricket Australia's acting head; Michael Brown announced that the Caribbean country's board clearance
is necessary for these players to play at the event.
Gayle, Pollard and Bravo had recently turned down the central contract offers made to them by the West Indies Cricket Board as they wanted to play in domestic cricket overseas. It now looks as if it would be really hard for them to get the “No Objection
Certificates” from WICB.
The West Indies' skipper, Chris Gayle presently has a contract with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Victoria-c859
Bushrangers, the club he had represented last year also.
However, WICB's Chief Executive, Ernest Hilaire has said in a statement that international cricket rules do not allow a player to play elsewhere in the world after having turned down the central contract of his board.
"There seems to be a thinking out there - and I'm not sure who has advised them - that they don't have to sign central contracts and they can still play wherever they want," stated Hilaire. "The rules of international cricket do not exactly allow for this."
Only two weeks back, these three players had declined to sign the 12-month central contracts worth US$ 80,000 offered by WICB as the contracts were conditional to the players' full-time availability for West Indies team.
Moreover, CA’s acting head further maintained that there is no way the players would be endorsed to play in the overseas tournaments without getting a clearance from their board.
"I would not see a situation where a player would be putting his position with his [home] board at risk without consent. We will work through that and I will talk to the West Indies if needed. Our relationship (with other) boards is fundamental'', argued
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Brown-c48671.
Hilaire, meanwhile, added that West Indies Cricket Board has started working on how to "make all of its stakeholders happy" for the future. In the past, WICB has always been tolerant while issuing No Objection Certificates to its players
but now Hilaire has cautioned that the board is seriously thinking about changing the policy to protect its interests.
He argued that allowing the players to play in overseas events had at times struck back as a player who was allowed to play Big Bash last year got injured and missed the one-day tour for West Indies team. He stated that the time has
come to revise the policies in the best interest of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 cricket.
"We have allowed it to happen and the time has come not for us to say we are not supporting any player playing elsewhere, but to find the right arrangement and framework in which our interest is not compromised."
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