Quote:Former West Indian skipper Carl Hooper urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to intervene in the affairs of West Indian cricket, which is currently in a mess due to the dispute between the West Indian Cricket Board (WICB) and the players, which threatens to spoil Australia’s tour of the West indies and their participation of the World Cup.

“I can’t imagine we miss the World Cup but the players have to resolve this with the board. It is a mess up with a tour pull out and there are implications. The one-day team we have can win the World Cup if you add Sunil Narine and Chris Gayle, but now we will take a while to get settled again,” said Hooper on the issue of West Indies’ participation in the World Cup.

Hooper, who played 102 Tests for West Indies between 1987 and 2002, hoped for a healing process between the concerned parties. “I never saw this coming. There hadn’t been issues for years. Is the problem with players and Wavell Hinds or Hinds and the board? My gut feeling is the issue is between Wavell Hinds and the board and whatever was communicated to the players was different,” said Hooper.

Quote:World Cup boss John Harnden admits there will be contingencies in place for a possible West Indies no-show, but insists he is confident the crisis in Caribbean cricket will be resolved well before next year's tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

Harnden indicated the World Cup would most likely remain a 14-team event even if the bitter and protracted dispute between the West Indies players, their board and their union leads to the absence of the 1975 and '79 champion, raising the possibility that a 'lucky loser' such as Hong Kong could be drafted in to make up the numbers.

...

However, tournament organisers have to be prepared for the worst-case scenarios.

"Everyone is disappointed with what happened in India but I have got no doubt that cool heads will prevail and everything will be sorted out well before the World Cup and in fact before the South African tour later this year," Harnden said.

"The cricket World Cup from a player's perspective really is about the ultimate prize in cricket so you can see they are really going to want to play here. They have got a unique team at the moment where they've got some great players and this could be a chance if they all band together and put this behind them, they will not want as players to miss out on this opportunity.

"We have a contingency plan for everything, basically. You have a range of scenarios, a range of outcomes for what you would do. With all of those we don't go and talk about the detail, and a lot of those plans depend on exactly how a situation does arrive and how it unfolds. Again, we are very confident that the West Indies will be here and they will play some fantastic cricket, and I'm sure the public around the world would love to see them do well."