Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell has intervened in a bid to end a contract dispute between senior West Indies players and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
The row between several leading players, including Brian Lara, and the WICB centres mainly around official insistence that players cannot without prior approval endorse rival companies to the WICB's main sponsor.
The dispute delayed the start of a three-week training camp in Barbados for the squad to tour Australia early next year.
Mitchell, in his capacity as chairman of the Caribbean Community Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket (CARICOM), announced on Monday that an adjudicator had been appointed to help resolve the situation.
Mitchell said Justice Adrian Saunders, Acting Chief Justice of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Supreme Court, had agreed to adjudicate in the matter.
"I believe both the Board and the players will be well served by the skills and expertise of Justice Adrian Saunders and I am pleased that he has agreed to adjudicate on this very important matter," the Prime Minister said in a statement.
The West Indies training camp was scheduled to begin on Monday but was delayed following protracted negotiations between the WICB and 16 disgruntled squad members including Lara, Mervyn Dillon,
ON SCHEDULE
Nine of the 25 squad members signed the player contracts and arrived on schedule in Barbados.
Following extensive discussions last Friday and the intervention of Prime Minister Mitchell, the WICB and West Indies Players Association (WIPA) agreed to negotiate a settlement of the match Tour Contract by December 15, the WICB said on its website.
The row echoes a similar dispute which threatened India's participation in the 2003 World Cup, when Saurav Ganguly's players were told by the International Cricket Council (ICC) they would not be allowed to endorse companies regarded as rivals to the tournament's official sponsors.
West Indies, along with such teams as Australia and England, were also sucked into the dispute before a late face-saving compromise was reached.
The last major clash between West Indies' players and officials came at the start of the team's 1998-99 tour of South Africa.
The team, led by Lara and his vice-captain Carl Hooper, refused to budge from their Heathrow hotel for several days following a pay dispute.
West Indies are scheduled to join hosts Australia and Pakistan in a triangular series to be played in January and February next year.
