WI players sue for slander

THE West Indies Cricket Players’ Association said they are suing The Guardian newspaper of Trinidad and Tobago slander over a report that said players were more interested in womanising than cricket during a disappointing recent tour in Australia. The West Indies team won only one of six matches played in limited-overs tournament between Australia, the West Indies and Pakistan. The Trinidad Guardian on Thursday published a February 12 critical report by Digicel, the Irish-based cellular telephone company that is the official sponsor of the West Indies Cricket  Board, written by Richard Nowell, who accompanied the team to Australia.

Players received late-night visits from women before important matches, and would have won the series if they had scored as many runs as they had women’s telephone numbers, the newspaper quoted from Nowell’s report. “I know men need to have fun while on tour. However, not at the expense of their performance,” he wrote, saying the players were “poor ambassadors” motivated only by money. Digicel has invested US$20 million in the team, Nowell said.

“Those comments contained unjustified imputations on the character and behaviour of West Indies players,” Dinanath Ramnarine, president of the West Indies Players Association, said in a statement published yesterday. The association also is filing suit against Nowell for calling it “a terrorist organisation,” Ramnarine said.  Nowell admitted writing the report but declined to comment on it. “I know that it (the report) was passed on to the West Indies Cricket Board for its perusal, and it rings of unprofessionalism that it should appear in a West Indies newspaper,” he said on Thursday.

Selection of the West Indies team for the Australia tour was delayed last year over a contract dispute between the players’ association and cricket officials, which was resolved by allowing individual players to hold endorsement deals with Digicel’s competition. In his report, Nowell said the personal Cable and Wireless contracts of leading players like team captain Brian Lara were the root of the problem. This, “combined with a terrorist players’ association,” means “our current rights have negligible value,” Nowell wrote. The West Indies Cricket Board are meeting tomorrow in Barbados and Nowell’s comments will be on the agenda, the board said in a statement.