India's cricket chiefs could take “serious action” against the West Indies, including possibly freezing all future bilateral series, for abandoning their tour because of an internal payment dispute, a top official said yesterday.
The West Indies cut short the tour of India on Friday even though a fifth one-day international, a Twenty20 match and three Tests still remained to be played.
“What has happened is very disappointing and calls for serious action,” Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Sanjay Patel said.
“We want to take ade-quate measures to ensure such a thing is not repeated.
“We have suffered huge losses due to the decision of the West Indies to pull out of the tour. We are going to claim all the damages and pursue the matter with ICC,” he said.
The BCCI’s decision-making working committee will meet in Hyderabad on Tuesday to take stock of the situation, he added.
“The working committee members will have dialogue on this and after that we may consider to not pursue further Future Tour Programmes (FTP) with the West Indies,” Patel told the Press Trust of India.
According to the International Cricket Council’s FTP, India are scheduled to tour the Caribbean during February and March 2016 to play three Tests, five one-dayers and a Twenty20 international.
BCCI joint secretary Anurag Thakur has called for a stringent action and wants the board to sever all ties with the Caribbean team.
“BCCI tried their level best to convince them but they (players) were adamant not to play due to their internal pay dispute with the board,” he said.
“They should have behaved more responsibly. The behaviour of players and West Indies board is not right. For the future tour programmes, BCCI should not play with the West Indies. They need to pay for the losses BCCI has incurred from this tour.
“That way no board or player in the near future will indulge in this kind of practice which goes against the game of cricket,” added Thakur, who is also the president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association that hosted the Dharamsala one-dayer, on Friday.
Patel has drawn the line at barring players from the West Indies from taking part in the cash-rich Indian Premier League, according to a report in the Mumbai-based Mid-Day newspaper.
“Our problem is with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and not their players,” Patel told the newspaper.
Current one-day captain Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine are among the top West Indies cricketers who play in the glitzy IPL tournament.
A WICB statement issued late Friday said it was the players' decision to withdraw their services for the remainder of the tour.
Skipper Bravo had said before the start of the tour on October 8 that the players had not accepted the payment agreement signed on their behalf by the West Indies Players Association.
But the players took the field for three one-dayers in Kochi, New Delhi and Dharamsala, while one match in Visakhapatnam was cancelled due to a severe storm on India's east coast.
The WICB statement said it had warned the BCCI the tour was “under a cloud of uncertainty from the inception” as a result of “postulations” by the players.
Bravo, speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony on Friday night, said: “It's been tough for us on tour… Everyone is sticking together, despite what's going on. We look forward to representing the West Indies again some time soon.”
India will now be hosting five one-dayers against Sri Lanka next month to fill the void.
