WEST INDIES Cricket Board Chief Executive Officer Dr Ernest Hilaire revealed that performance related pay for cricketers is being considered by his organsiation as they seek to motivate players to improve.
“With regard to performance related pay the board is currently discussing different models for the compensation of players. A decision will be made shortly. Of course we recognise the need for us to provide greater incentives to the players to perform. You will see, moving forward, the board will propose to WIPA and to the players that there is a very strong component of performance related pay,” he said.
Hilaire noted that it has been a challenge with certain players to come to an agreement with regards to their participation in the Indian Premier League. He revealed that discussions have taken place with Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Chris Gayle but the conversations with the latter have not been what they expected.
“We said to the players that we don’t want to be in a fight with you. It makes no sense for us to have players who we’re forcing to play for West Indies. We won’t get performance, we won’t get commitment.
We’ve tried to explain to the players about representing West Indies and the necessity to do it and the importance of it. We can always decide that we will pick you and see what happens – whether you perform or not it’s up to you and your conscience and your commitment. But we do not think that is the best way to go about it so we have tried to speak to the players about it,” he said,
“We’ve had discussions with Kieron Pollard about his own aspirations, his development, where he wants to go with his game and what his own plans are and we’ve understood his own thoughts. And we’re going to try to work with him to ensure he remains a valuable resource to West Indies cricket.
“We’ve spoken to Dwayne Bravo about his own plans and intentions. We’ve had some very frank and engaging discussions on the matter and we will see how best we can accommodate the players. With Chris Gayle it has not been a productive discussion and therefore it is a little more difficult for me to make any pronouncements as it relates to Chris.
“But we are open to discussing with players what their plans and objectives are and how best we can accommodate them within the commitment that they must also play for country and to represent West Indies cricket,” he explained.
He pointed out that there has been an agreement with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) that international cricket gets the priority which all must respect.
“The BCCI has agreed that it will only allow players to play in the IPL if they are not chosen to represent their country in international matches. So as long as WICB selects a player, no IPL franchise will let that player play. So when players were told don’t sign your (WICB retainer) contract because it means you can go to IPL they were being misled.
If they don’t sign contracts and we select them, the franchise will not let them play. They can decide they are not playing for West Indies but even then they still cannot play in the IPL because we would have selected them to play for West Indies,” he said.
