Cricket
Windies players want to tour
2009-10-06 09:57
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Melbourne - West Indies' top players will make themselves available for the summer tour to Australia, despite their ongoing dispute with cricket administrators, local media quoted all-rounder Dwayne Bravo as saying.
"We are all going to make ourselves available, that is definite," Bravo told Tuesday's Age newspaper.
"We are looking forward to getting back playing international cricket."
Top West Indies players, including Bravo and former skipper Chris Gayle, refused to play in a losing two-match test series at home against Bangladesh in July due to a dispute over contracts and payments.
Although the players ended their boycott after the series, the West Indies Cricket Board has stuck to its guns, sticking with a weaker back-up squad for a one-day international series against Bangladesh and for the ICC Champions Trophy tournament that ended on Monday.
The protracted dispute has threatened to derail Australia's cricket summer, traditionally a ratings bonanza for broadcasters and sponsors, with interest likely to plunge with the prospect of a one-sided white-wash.
Bravo, who has been out of test cricket for more than a year due to an ankle injury, said the players would front up for a regional tournament in Guyana later this month to make themselves available for selection.
"It's a long while since I played a test match and I want to get back on the test pitch. The last time was against Australia and now I am hopefully going to be back playing Australia again," he said.
Tim May, chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations, said he would now expect a "greater urgency" to resolve the dispute.
"The West Indies have made themselves available so you would like to think that the West Indies board would make some better decisions... If they go to Australia with a second-string team it will be as if they are airing their dirty laundry in public," he said.
The first test starts in Brisbane on Nov. 26.