Melbourne, September 14: Cricket Australia general manager Michael Brown is confident the West Indies will send its best available team when it takes on Australia in a three-Test series beginning in late November.
The West Indian players have been on strike over a pay dispute with their board and recently selected a second string team for matches against Bangladesh. Thirty-nine-year-old Floyd Reifer captained a team that lost two Tests and three one-dayers to the lowest-ranked cricketing nation.
However, the strike looks set to end soon with the West Indies Players’ Association on Sunday accepting a ‘rescue plan’ by Caricom governments to end the crisis.
Brown revealed that Cricket Australia has been in contact with the West Indies board and is confident their best players will come.
“We’re very confident that we’re working with the WICB to make sure they bring their best available team,” he said on Monday.
“I read in recent times that they understand the need to bring their team together and the opportunity to tour Australia is a unique one for many young cricketers and I know how much the West Indians enjoy coming here.”
“We’re very confident we’ll have a great summer, it’s an important summer for Australian cricket, we’ve come off the back of a great series in South Africa and obviously a very close Ashes.”
“It’s really important that we establish and have a great summer this year ahead of the Ashes next year which we need to win it back. We’re ready to go and looking forward to it.”
On the Australia domestic cricket front, Brown believes that this summer will be one of the most exciting with several international stars committing to play in the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash.
With the likes of Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan (Victoria), West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Bravo (Victoria), West Indian batsman Chris Gayle (Western Australia), Sri Lankan paceman Lasith Malinga (Tasmania) and Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis (South Australia) already committing to the tournament it makes for an exciting summer.
Brown isn’t worried that Australian players will miss out at the expense of these stars, instead saying that the players will benefit from playing along side and against high-quality internationals.
“One of the things I know from dealing with elite players is that they want to play the best against the best and the opportunity to promote our KFC Big Bash and make the competition stronger is something that’s important,” he said.
“We’ve seen in IPL, the benefits that young Indian players have had from playing with experienced players like Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist … We’ve opportunities to do that, there are enough places in the side for good players to play and it’s not just the way the play, it’s the way they train, they prepare themselves.”
“For us it’s about embracing the future and certainly embracing international players into domestic cricket.”
Brown also said that Australia will not follow in England’s footsteps and reduce one-dayers to 40-over matches, although they will review the state of the shorter format of the game after the 2011 World Cup.
—–Agencies