West Indies hires firm to review cricket landscape
The West Indies Cricket Board is looking to make sweeping changes to improve the quality of cricket in the West Indies. To that end, WICB chief executive Ernest Hilaire announced a partnership with a
consulting company to take a look at solving the issues the WICB faces, most notably that increasingly West Indian players are passing on contracts for the national team to play in more lucrative league T20 tournaments around the world.
Speaking about the proposed review, Hilaire said it would greatly alter the cricket landscape.
“Once that exercise is complete, you will see some fundamental changes to how http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 cricket is managed," he said. He added, "Once that exercise is complete, you will see some fundamental changes
to how West Indies cricket is managed,"
Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard had turned down the central contracts in order to be available for the tournaments like the Indian Premier League and the KFC Big Bash T20. According to the chief
executive, the WICB had requested the trio to share with them the reasons behind their refusal and how could such situations be avoided in the future. Hilaire added that two of them had agreed to be a part of the discussion.
Hilaire also added that until now the WICB would issue the NOCs required by the players to play in the T20 tournaments without any issue, but the changing landscape could necessitate them to relook into the
rules.
“Anyone who thinks we don't have to change are just fooling themselves,” said Hilaire.
Hilaire also said that while the board was not against the players earning money, the board had a responsibility of protecting interests of their stakeholders as well. He also added that he understood that
the sport of cricket had a lot of competition from others in the region and the WICB’s main responsibility would be to ensure that more youngsters take to cricket than other sports.
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