India ask West Indies for $42m compensation over tour

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India have demanded West Indies pay $42m (£26.2m) in compensation for pulling out of their tour in October.

A West Indies pay dispute curtailed the tour of India with two limited-overs games and three Test matches to play.

India’s board, the BCCI, quantifies its losses as $41.97m and says the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is liable.

In a letter to the WICB, the BCCI said it “intends to enforce its rights to seek compensation from the WICB to the fullest extent permissible in law”.

The BCCI has given the WICB 15 days from receipt of the letter to reply and says it has peremptorily filed appropriate legal proceedings against the WICB in India for recovery of the losses.

The letter adds: “The consequences of not delivering a scheduled home tour is crippling.”

It goes on to state that this “quantification is tentative and constitutes an approximation of the losses” and that the BCCI is “in the process of assessing its other losses” which “once quantified will be intimated to the WICB”.

Secretary Sanjay Patel, who sent the letter on behalf of the BCCI, said that the WICB had tried to contact him since the cancellation but he had a responsibility to his board.

He went on to describe the Indian board as “a cricket loving one” and that it “would play a positive role in resolving the issue”.

Having initially denied making a decision to end the tour, the Windies left India after the fourth one-day international on 17 October because of a pay dispute between board and players.

Three Tests, the last match of the one-day international series and a Twenty20 international were not played.

The WICB offered to field a replacement team for the remainder of the tour but said that “was not considered acceptable” by the BCCI, who announced that Sri Lanka had agreed to provide the opposition for a five-match one-day international series, which starts in Cuttack on Sunday.

India had been scheduled to tour the Caribbean in February and March 2016 but the BCCI announced last week that all future tours to the West Indies would be suspended because of the saga.