Waiting on Lara

Brian Lara has ducked a potentially damaging dilemma thrown at him by the West Indies Cricket Board. With six of his colleagues sidelined from the upcoming South Africa tour because of the Cable and Wireless contracts, Lara was told that he was the only one whose contract did not hinder the WICB from fulfilling their obligations to Digicel.

According to news reports, attorneys for the WICB found that Dwayne Bravo, Fidel Edwards, Chris Gayle, Ravi Rampaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Smith had signed agreements which “were clearly not in the nature of individual contracts and were signed as members of the West Indies team, while under contract to the West Indies Cricket Board.” But Lara’s contract, said the attorneys, differed since it was “entered into and with the constructive knowledge of the board and with their blessings.”

It was on this basis that the WICB offered Lara the chance to play. But the argument seems a curious one. Is there a clause in Lara’s Cable and Wireless (CW) contract which specifies that the WICB gave him their “blessings?” If so, why did the attorneys not quote this holy clause? And, concomitantly, does this mean that, in the case of the other six players, the WICB were unaware that such contracts had been signed? Such ignorance bespeaks a woeful lack of alertness — after all, at least one WICB board member should have noticed the players under question wearing CW jerseys and appearing in the company’s ads.

On the other hand, if the WICB was aware of these contracts, and made no objection, does this not imply a blessing? It has, however, been suggested that the pertinent issue is not the board’s spiritual approval, but the timing of the contracts. Lara’s CW contract was apparently signed before the WICB made its $20 million Digicel deal, while the other six players signed their CW contracts after the Digicel agreement. At the same time, the point is complicated by Lara having apparently already signed a renewal contract with CW. Additionally, Lara is the one quoted in the Digicel report as having said that he is a CW man — an allegation which so far has not been denied.

So the real question is this: Why has the WICB bent over backward to accommodate Lara, but not the other players? And the answer, of course, is quite simple: the board wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. Lara is, far and away, the star of the West Indies cricket team. And, with the team performing so dismally in the past few years, his attraction as a drawing card has become even more important, since people will come to see his batting brilliance even in the midst of a low-ranked squad.

Moreover, the board has been receiving some vicious blows because of its cavalier and contemptuous treatment of a Caribbean icon. The offer to Lara may have been intended as conciliatory. But that does not change the fact that this unhappy situation has been created almost solely by the WICB’s incompetence. Which means that the only dignified way Lara could accept any playing offer is if the entire board resigns and is replaced by a slate with clean hands.