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Port of Spain: A former top official of West Indies Cricket Board has revealed that their national players played the Twenty20 World Cup in England without signing the ICC squad terms contract till the quarterfinal and were almost disqualified from the mega event for the goof-up.
Conde Riley, who resigned as WICB director on Saturday, said West Indies were almost disqualified from the ICC World Twenty20 Championship just hours before their semi-final clash with Sri Lanka at The Oval on June 19.
"When we went to England we were required to submit to the ICC what is called a squad terms contract where each player who is going to take part signs. On the morning before the match against Sri Lanka, Chris Tetley of the ICC informed the WICB secretariat that our team would be disqualified for the non-signing of these contracts by the players," Riley was quoted as saying.
"On that morning contact was made by Roland Holder (WICB's cricket operations officer) after Chris Tetley contacted him and he (Holder) contacted then manager Omar Khan who at that point had to try and get these contracts signed to avoid our team being disqualified at the semi-final stage of the Twenty20 tournament.
"After much to and fro and with the approval of (WIPA president Dinanath) Ramnarine and the WIPA the players signed the contract," said Riley whose resignation came in the aftermath of the failed negotiations between the WICB and the WIPA on the vexed players' pay dispute.
Defending the WICB for not selecting the top players for the Champions Trophy in South Africa later this month, Riley said they were handed a similar contract but refused to sign on the dotted lines.
"This is a similar contract that was sent to the WIPA to have these players complete these contracts for formal transmission to the ICC (for the Champions Trophy)," Riley explained.
"Not one single contract has been returned to the West Indies Cricket Board by the WIPA which would then have made these players eligible. We took the decision that after not receiving the contracts from these players who said they were available that they had now made themselves ineligible. A deadline had to be met.
"Therefore as (WICB) vice-president Dave Cameron said the other day we then selected the team from those persons who had made themselves eligible by signing the contracts. I hope that puts that to rest."
