With the standoff between the West Indies Cricket Board and its players showing no signs of ending, a concerned Australia, which is scheduled to host the side, is exploring other options to avoid playing a second string team from the Caribbean.
Cricket Australia Chief executive James Sutherland said the possibility of a full-strength West Indies team not turning up is still ripe and so they have started preparing some contingency plans for the summer.
“We have started to think about these sorts of things but again it is too early to be too definitive about how that all might unfold,” Sutherland was quoted as saying in Sydney Morning Herald .
“The messages coming through from ICC and indirectly at this stage from West Indies, we’re really hopeful things will be sorted and any sort of contingencies we might have started to think about won’t be relevant.
“There are definitely concerns because at the moment the West Indies Cricket Board and their players haven’t sorted out their issues, and therefore it would appear if all things remain the same that we won’t have a West Indies team of the strength we might hope for.
“Yes, it’s a concern, but it’s also a couple of months away and in my experience these sorts of industrial disputes can be fixed very, very quickly. I would hope both parties can, in the foreseeable future, see eye to eye,” he added.
