Cash crunch hits Windies cricket; players yet to receive WT20 World Cup match fees    

The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the whole sporting world to a standstill with the number of positive cases and deaths increasing every day. In the middle of this chaos, the West Indies players are facing another challenge after the board has failed to clear their dues for the last two months, which under normal circumstances would have happened at the end of February 2020. It is understood that the delay in payments is because of the severe cash crunch that Cricket West Indies is going through because of the pandemic.



While the international men players have not been paid their match fees for the home series against Ireland in January and the Sri Lanka tour in February-March, their female counterparts are still yet to receive match fees for the four matches they played in the T20 World Cup, played in February-March in Australia.



However, according to Wayne Lewis, secretary of West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA), “The female cricketers have received their prize money from the T20 World Cup, but not their match fees, which has also not been paid to the men’s white-ball squads.” He added that WIPA is in touch with CWI to ‘ensure the money is paid as quickly as possible’ to the players.



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CWI chief executive officer Johnny Grave had given the assurance that payments would be made in the near future. “Cricket West Indies is facing a tough time financially,” Grave was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo. “Whilst all of our contracted players have received their salaries and allowances, and some players have received prize money and match fees, there is still money that is outstanding and we are trying to settle these player payments as a priority.”



“We are two months behind making match fee payments,” Grave said. “I personally emailed all the players since the end of February when they would have been due (match fees). We have apologised to all the players and we are eternally grateful to their continued patience and support. We’ve been very open and honest as to why we can’t pay them and all the players know it is a priority for us to pay them as soon as we can.”



Grave said the primary reason CWI was facing the cash crunch was the huge losses – 22 million US dollars -- the board suffered in 2018. That CWI was still able to clear dues for players for 2019 was only possible because of the England and India series at home last year. “That (the loss) was counter-balanced by having England and India in 2019 which led to record revenues. We almost cleared the balance of 2018 and 2019,” he said.