India’s cricket board has dropped a $42 million (£29 million) damages claim against the West Indies over an abandoned tour in 2014 after the new World Twenty20 champions agreed to return next year.
The huge damages claim lodged by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had threatened to cripple its cash-strapped West Indies counterpart which has long been at loggerheads with its own players.
But BCCI president Shashank Manohar told Cricinfo the decision to waive the claim, filed by his predecessor Narayanaswami Srinivasan’s regime, had been made after the West Indies agreed to fulfil their original commitments and the schedule for the tour should be finalised next month.
“That is now sorted out because they are going to come back and play here next year,” said Manohar.“They have to complete those (unfinished) games. That was a claim raised by the board. (We) would be satisfied by them coming and playing here.”
The West Indies players flew home from India in October 2014 when a long-running pay dispute came to a head in the middle of the tour.
The two teams had been due to play five ODIs, three Test matches and a T20 international, but the tourists refused to play on after the first four ODIs with captain Dwayne Bravo leading a revolt by the players.
Bravo was subsequently sacked as skipper and has since been an outspoken critic of the West Indies board.
After captaining the West Indies to victory in the final of the World Twenty20 in Kolkata earlier this month, Darren Sammy took a swipe at the governing body over what he said was a lack of support for the players.
The board slapped Sammy down but also announced plans for talks with senior players, many of whom have not played Test cricket since 2014, turning out instead in lucrative domestic T20 tournaments.
