India suspends all West Indies tours as cricket row escalates

The West Indies cancelled their tour of India with five games still remaining. Credit: PA

The Board of Control for Cricket in India will begin legal proceedings against the West Indies Cricket Board following the cancellation of the latter's tour and have also suspended all bilateral tours between the two sides.

The West Indies cut their three-format tour short after the fourth one-day international on Friday due to a dispute over player payments and a BCCI working committee has been debating their response over recent days.

A press release signed by board secretary Sanjay Patel confirmed that legal representatives will now be called, while also calling into doubt the entire future relationship between the two nations.

The two brief bullet points which could plunge the WICB into an even wider-scale crisis read: "1. BCCI will initiate legal proceedings against West Indies Cricket Board due to the abrupt cancellation of this tour.

"All Bilateral tours between BCCI and WICB stand suspended."

The West Indies team have been in dispute with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) over the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement and memorandum of understanding (MoU), which would see sponsorship payments reallocated to fund the wider professional game in the islands.

And with no agreement in sight the worst-case option of departing India with one ODI, a Twenty20 international and three Tests still to play was taken.

The WICB eventually made a conciliatory offer of a sending a new group of players to fulfill the fixtures but with a guaranteed mis-match not proving appealing to the Indians or their commercial partners, a five-match one-day series against Sri Lanka was hastily fixed.

Those games have been confirmed to take place in Cuttack, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, with a detailed itinerary in the offing.

While West Indian relations with the game's most powerful body have now sunk to a new nadir, Sri Lanka Cricket are now in a postion to take advantage of their new status as saviours.

An additional note on Tuesday's BCCI release read: "The Members appreciated the gesture of Sri Lankan Cricket Board for having accepted our request to play five ODIs starting from 2nd of November 2014, at such a short notice. This tour is in lieu of their scheduled tour to India next year which will be reciprocated by India touring Sri Lanka in months of July/August 2015."