Pat Rousseau, the under-fire president of the board, will arrive in London today with two colleagues in a final, desperate attempt to save the West Indies' first official tour of South Africa, his presence an unavoidable gamble as all else, even the intervention of Nelson Mandela, has failed to solve what has developed into the biggest crisis the game has seen since the Packer affair 20 years ago.
The pay dispute, on the surface over a few pounds but much more complex than that, began with a heated argument between the West Indian players and officials while in transit at Bangkok on their way from Bangladesh to Johannesburg and has reached an impasse with the whole tour party setting up camp in the unlikely setting of the Excelsior Hotel, Heathrow. Rebel cricketers used to get into trouble for visiting South Africa. This time the rebels have decided to stay away from the republic.
All seemed well last Sunday when the West Indies had proved themselves an improving one-day force by finishing runners-up to, coincidentally, South Africa in the ICC tournament in Dhaka. Yet their preparations to leave Bangladesh for a South African tour deep in cultural significance was simply the lull before a particularly unpleasant storm. Plotting had been going on behind the scenes throughout the competition.
Brian Lara and Carl Hooper, their batting genius matched only by their capacity for controversy, sparked off the trouble. They told their team-mates, in the departure lounge amid the heat and bussle of Bangkok International Airport on Tuesday, of their intentions to meet up in London with the seven members of the tour party who had not been on duty in Bangladesh - among them Courtney Walsh. Lara had already telephoned Walsh to tell the seven to stay in London and not go to South Africa as planned.
It did not take long for sparks to fly, the players exchanging angry words with Clive Lloyd, now the tour manager but, with a rich irony, a leading figure in the Packer dispute as a player seeking more money. Times have changed. Lloyd's pleas for his captain and vice-captain to remain with the team fell on deaf ears; Lara and Hooper insisted that they were representing the whole team and eventually joined up on Wednesday with Walsh and Co at Heathrow, the group all booking into the Excelsior under the name of GB Sports, their travel agents.
By the time Lara and Hooper arrived, they had been sacked from the party, their dismissals being confirmed in faxes to the Excelsior from Steve Camacho, the chief executive of a furious West Indies board, who were in emergency session in Antigua. The board's patience had finally run out with the two errant stars and, for good measure, they fined the other players in London 10 per cent of their tour fees. Senior players will earn around £32,000 basic for the trip, with junior members of the party receiving £23,000.
Now Lara took a back seat in the affair, saying: ``I'm on the outside. I'm not a member of the West Indies cricket team at the moment. But I still want to go to South Africa''. With that, he departed the Excelsior and has not been seen in public since, his Test career hanging by a thread.
Attention switched to Walsh, the hugely-respected former captain and now president of the West Indies Players' Association and the man replaced controversially by Lara at the helm before England's tour earlier this year. Now Lara's actions had forced him back into the spotlight again.
Walsh, who is on the brink of breaking Malcolm Marshall's West Indies Test wickets record, spent much of Thursday on the phone from room 4902, a luxury suite at the Excelsior, locked in largely unsuccessful talks with his fellow Jamaican Rousseau, who was in Kingston, and Camacho, who was still in Antigua. The rest of the team passed time as best they could, anxious to avoid the growing media circus in the spacious lobby until the first element of farce kicked in later that day.
Two players decided to brave the throng and visit the hotel shop to buy seven blackcurrant drinks for their group. Junior Murray was easily recognisable but his tall companion was harder to place - he was wearing a monster mask to poke fun at the developing siege mentality.
``Is that you Courtney,'' he was asked. ``No.'' ``Curtly?'' ``No!'' It's Franklyn, isn't it?'' ``Yes,'' confirmed Franklyn Rose, of Jamaica and latterly Northamptonshire, going on to say that all he wanted to do was play cricket but refusing to comment when asked if everyone was behind Lara. Each question was met with a serious response. And all the time he continued to wear his mask . . .
The mood was very different in South Africa, where a tour worth an estimated £4 million to the host nation's United Cricket Board and much more in terms of promoting the game to black youngsters was suddenly in jeopardy.
On Sunday a welcoming party led by UCB managing director Dr Ali Bacher and former West Indian Test player Conrad Hunte, who has done so much to promote the game in South Africa to the under-privileged, went to Johannesburg Airport to welcome the first group of players who were coming in from the Caribbean via London. They waited and no cricketers appeared.
By Tuesday, nervousness began to grip Bacher and his men. They were getting telephone calls from reporters saying that Lara and Hooper had broken away from the group and had gone to London. Bacher put in a call to Camacho demanding to know what was happening. Camacho said the players were disputing tour payments they had agreed even before they went to Bangladesh. He said he had ordered Lara and Hooper to get the first plane out of London to Antigua. They never took it.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Bacher was meeting seven of the tour party who had been playing in Bangladesh, as they arrived in South Africa along with Lloyd and coach Marshall. They were driven to the team hotel while Bacher, six hours ahead of the West Indies on the international clock, waited for the WICB to stir before putting in more calls. The press conference, scheduled for 1pm, was cancelled. Would that be the fate of the tour, everybody was asking.
By Thursday, the situation was getting serious. The UCB received a call from the team's hotel to cancel the bus that was to take these seven to net practice. They were going to London instead.
This was the day of the marathon telephone conference between Bacher and Rousseau. Bacher and Hunte then went to meet Lloyd and Marshall to try to persuade them to keep the Johannesburg seven in South Africa for 48 hours. Hunte told them: ``This tour is the culmination of all my work here because everyone needs a hero, a role model. It must go ahead.
``At the moment there is tremendous disappointment at what's going on. I think I'm right in saying that the people of the townships would welcome West Indies winning, even though they are South Africans. The emotional contact is there. They will identify more with South Africa when a couple of their own superstars emerge.''
But the players in Johannesburg were adamant that they had to stand by their colleagues in London and left for England before Bacher and Lloyd drove together to catch the 10pm Thursday night flight to Heathrow. The players flew with South African Airlines to London, mixing and meeting with the Springbok rugby players, Clayton Lambert receiving an invitation to watch the players in action if they were still in London when they faced England. ``I hope not,'' smiled Lambert. ``I hope to be back in South Africa by then!''
Bacher and Lloyd, meanwhile, were travelling with British Airways, the South African confident that he was armed with a weapon that would bring the whole messy business to an end - 16 copies of a four-page, typed letter from Nelson Mandela for each player, including Lara and Hooper, urging them to travel and finishing with the paragraph: ``I will look forward to the privilege of personally meeting you on your arrival in our country.'' Surely, Bacher felt, that could not fail.
And the abiding memory of the whole affair so far is of the most accomplished administrator in cricket left standing, helpless, at the hotel's reception for 65 minutes waiting to be acknowledged by the West Indian ``rebels'' when he put his ace card on the table.
Bacher, the renowned ``Mr Fix-it'' of the game, had just walked the 400 yards to the Excelsior from the neighbouring Radisson Edwardian Hotel, where he had had three hours of talks with Lloyd and Joel Garner - the latter having been diverted by the board on his way to manage the A tour of Bangladesh to be their representative because Garner was, in Lloyd's words, ``their biggest man'' but, bizarrely, he had been given no authorisation to negotiate.
Bacher was surrounded by cameras and notebooks but happily waved his package aloft and waited for Walsh. But Walsh did not come. An anxious hotel lobby manager kept on ringing Walsh's room, returning to Bacher to report variously that he was on the phone, not answering and that he would be down soon.
South African journalists began to get angry on their country's behalf; one offered Bacher his hotel room so that he could avoid the prying eyes of the media and Bacher simply replied: ``It's OK. I'm staying calm.''
Batsman Stuart Williams and Rose appeared and Bacher went to greet them, thinking they were there to see him. But they walked straight past to reception. Walsh eventually appeared, walking past Bacher and circling the lobby before telling the hotel manager that he would see the South African, adding: ``But tell him to make it brief.''
The pair came together, a brief handshake was followed by the handing over of Mandela's letter and a short private meeting between the two. South Africans were outraged by Walsh's apparent reluctance to receive it. ``West Indians show contempt for Mandela,'' screamed one headline in Johannesburg yesterday. One senior West Indies player, meanwhile, said that Bacher's move was ill-advised, turning what should have been a genuine gesture on Mandela's behalf into a tacky display of public emotional blackmail.
``This dispute has been coming for a long time,'' added the same player. ``It's about much more than money for this tour. It's about conditions and pay in general.''
``I'm confident that the tour will go ahead. Of course it will,'' said Bacher late on Friday amid rumours of tour sponsors pulling out and others in South Africa offering to cover the additional sums demanded by the West Indians. ``We will definitely not get involved financially. It's up to the West Indies board and their players. But this trip must go on. It's about so much more than bat and ball.''
But the show was not back on the road yesterday. And Bacher was looking an increasingly agitated man at the Radisson, having to cancel his flight back to Johannesburg last night while the West Indies were extending their bookings at the Excelsior. ``We're no nearer settling the dispute,'' said Garner before Walsh emerged to have yesterday's final word.
Reading from a prepared statement, he said: ``The West Indies cricket team are unanimous in their wish that the South African tour takes place. They fully appreciate the importance of the tour, both to the board and to the public of South Africa as emphasised by the letter of Nelson Mandela.
``They are equally unanimous in their view that the tour can only take place if the West Indies board meet here with representatives of the players in London in order to finalise contracts for the tour and draw up guidelines for future series. The players stress that they have been available for such a meeting since Tuesday, Nov 3.
``We are pleased that the president [Rousseau] is going to make an appearance. That is good news for us. This is not just about money. It's to do with generalised conditions, the future of West Indies cricket and safeguarding the younger guys who are just coming in.''
He went on to confirm that Lara and Hooper must be reinstated. ``That's part of the condition,'' said Walsh. ``We want the entire 16 the way they were selected. The boys want Brian as captain. We are very hopeful.''
Now it is over to Rousseau, who has survived some monumental problems in West Indian cricket and is adamant that he will not back down over Lara's re-instatement. But this is his biggest problem yet, even bigger than the furore over the abandoned Jamaica Test in January. And today, after Rousseau meets with the players and their representative Jonathan Barnett, will decide whether he can solve it. If Rousseau climbs down, he will surely have to resign. If he stands firm, the tour will surely be off. The stakes are high.