CricInfo Home
News Home

NEWS FOCUS
Rsa in Pak
NZ in India
Zim in Aus

Domestic
Other Series

The unfortunate and unnecessarily protracted saga over England's World Cup contracts ended yesterday when Alec Stewart rang Tim Lamb, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, to confirm that the players were happy with the altered terms.

Various final options had been offered by the board to Stewart, Angus Fraser and Neil Fairbrother, the three senior players who have been acting as representatives for the selected team of 15.

The one accepted yesterday - although each player still has to sign his own contract and they are apparently determined as a group to delay the process until the board's deadline next Monday - differs financially and in matters of administrative detail from the original. This was shown to Stewart before the team left for Lahore and Sharjah three weeks ago.

The captain and Simon Pack, the international teams director, had discussed the matter before Christmas during the tour of Australia but Stewart requested adjustments when the contract was shown to him in the last week of March.

Pack believed, reasonably enough, that there should be a large measure of incentive in the payments - the better the team did the more they would be paid - but the players, prepared to accept the principle, nevertheless asked for a larger basic fee than was first proposed and were later annoyed that it was not until the last week of the Sharjah trip that Lamb, attending an International Cricket Council meeting, brought the contracts out.

Lengthy discussions followed and only now have terms been mutually agreed. Should England win the World Cup it is estimated each player would earn about £60,000, more than the two favourites, Australia and South Africa. The altered basic fee is understood to be £12,000 but the players will continue to receive their county salaries, their employers being compensated by the board.

The England team will now meet in Canterbury on Sunday week to start preparations for the first match against Sri Lanka at Lord's on May 14. They are still debating whether to accompany their signatures with a public statement expressing dissatisfaction with the way that the matter has been handled by the board.

That would be ill-advised. They need to concentrate on the business of trying to make the most of home advantage to win the World Cup for the first time, despite defeats in seven of their last eight matches.

The Sri Lankans have been in ever greater disarray in the last few days and it has taken government intervention to settle the disputed re-election of their board of control and their president, Thilanga Sumathipala.

A claim that his re-election was undemocratic is being examined by a senior judge in Colombo but the minister for sport has set up an ad hoc committee to keep the game's administration going and finance for the players' visas and their allowances in England has now been made available. The World Cup organising committee said yesterday that the Sri Lankan team will arrive in England on Saturday.

Pakistan, due in England on May 3, still have to confirm who will take over as coach from Javed Miandad after his sudden resignation on Wednesday. No country produces so many talented cricketers, often despite rather than because of their system, but no country has an equal capacity for internecine strife.

After a run of success in Test and one-day cricket, Pakistan's chances of carrying their form into the World Cup can only have been disrupted by the disaffection of the little maestro.

Australia and the West Indies, currently approaching the climax of one of the best-fought series of one-day internationals for some time, have problems, too. The two most important individuals on either side, Glenn McGrath and Brian Lara, are still injured, McGrath with an ankle sprain and Lara with an aggravated hairline fracture of his right wrist. He will not play in the last two matches against Australia, but the fact that injured players will be allowed to be replaced in the tournament (although they cannot then be reinstated) means Lara is sure to come to England.

Australia have a second indisposed bowler in Adam Dale, who went home from the Caribbean with pneumonia. His unfailingly accurate swing bowling had established him as a key member of their attack, especially if typical early-season conditions prevail. The advantages of playing a highly competitive series so close to the tournament will be offset if injuries recur.

At least there will be nothing wrong with team spirit in the Australian and West Indian camps, something which might not be said of several of the other teams. There has been dissension in the Bangladesh camp over the original omission of their former captain, Akram Khan, and the senior Kenya batsman, Maurice Odumbe, has been fined for criticising coach Alvin Kallicharran. It is not just the organisers at Lord's who are hoping things will be all right on the night.