Holding disputes WI board's claims

The slanging match between Michael Holding and the West Indies Cricket Board continued with the former fast bowler claiming that the reasons for his resignation from the cricket committee have been misinterpreted.

Holding quit, claiming in his resignation letter, that the cricket committee had been "sidestepped" when the board had rejected billionaire Allen Stanford's request for an early selection of the West Indies team to tour Pakistan in November. The potential clash of dates led to the cancellation of the Stanford 20/20 Super Stars match - originally scheduled for November 10 between a combined West Indies XI and South Africa.

The board, then, in a press release, countered Holding's allegation by citing Clive Lloyd, the chairman of the committee, who said, "With regards to the cricket committee being 'sidestepped' over the selection of players my view of this is that the cricket committee should not have been involved in this issue consequently the responsibility rests solely with the WICB selectors".

In his own statement released on September 9, Holding said, "this is a smokescreen trying to imply that I was saying that the cricket committee should be involved in the selection of the personnel going to Pakistan. That is not so. I was saying that the cricket committee should have been consulted if there had been any problems with the timing [emphasis in original] of the selection of the team, not the makeup of the team."

Holding also clarified what in his view had actually led to the cancellation of the US$5million winner take-it-all 20/20 match. "Their [board's] response is that the Stanford group applied directly to the ICC for ratification of it's 20/20 tournament and not to the WICB as should have been the case and that when the group contacted the WICB , the board was already negotiating the Pakistan tour. Now what a load of rubbish. The facts of the matter are that the Stanford group got in touch with the ICC asking what were the procedures to get the tournament ratified and the ICC's reply was that it had to be endorsed by the WICB. It was the WICB who then wrote to the ICC and it was the WICB that the ICC responded to way back in January, sending a copy of that letter to the Stanford group."

The board had also disputed Holding's claim that two of the three selectors - Clyde Butts and Andy Roberts - had not been informed about captain Brain Lara's reported objection to the early team selection. Holding's response to this was: "My resignation letter is dated August 26th, the same date Roberts and Butts confirmed that they did not have any discussions with Lara. Anything could have transpired between then and September 5th unless the WICB are making out these two gentlemen to be liars."

Holding said that while he had been consistent throughout in his response, Lloyd had not been so. Referring to the reasons why he and Lloyd resigned from the committee, he said: "I know what Clive Lloyd told me was his reason for declining but since he can't recall, I won't go there but as I said before and repeat now, I declined because the 'cricket committee' is what I had agreed to be a part of, not this 'win world cup committee'. Again I won't try to speak for Clive Lloyd but my overseas commitments haven't changed since August 2005 so how come I was able to take up the offer of this new cricket committee?"

Ken Gordon, the board president, earlier said he will not be drawn into verbal conflict on the matter. "We have spent too much time talking about contentious issues rather than focusing on the important things. Now is the time to go forward."