The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is scrambling to get a team together for the first Test against Bangladesh starting on Thursday after the selected players decided to boycott the match due to contract disputes. West Indies Cricket Board President Julian Hunte told Reuters on Wednesday that the Test match would go ahead but said the team would not be announced until shortly before the game due to fears about intimidation of players. “We are playing a Test match in a St. Vincent against Bangladesh that is all I can say,” Hunte told Reuters by telephone. Hunte declined to comment on the recruitment of players but said there had been a lot of intimidation. The WICB chief declined to comment on who had carried out the intimidation or give any details about which players had been approached. However, Jamaican fast bowler Daren Powell, not included in the selected 13 for the game in St. Vincent, said on Wednesday he had been approached by the board to play. Powell, dropped for May's tour of England but a regular over recent years with 37 Test appearances, said he had turned down the chance to play. “I was contacted by the West Indies board but I told them I was not available this time,” Powell told Reuters. The WICB faces a huge challenge to find a team and make arrangements to get it to St. Vincent for the game. The Barbados Nation newspaper reported on Wednesday that 16-year-old Barbadian opening batsman Kraigg Brathwaite was among those who have been approached to play in the first Test. Brathwaite is in Jamaica for the regional Under-19 tournament and the Nation said that several other Barbadians were being considered including former Test player Tino Best. The West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) announced on Tuesday that the Test squad, captained by Chris Gayle, had withdrawn from the series with immediate effect. The WIPA said they were owed payments for recent games and that the players have performed in the last four series without contracts. “Heading home. Sorry to all the cricket fans. This is the last thing we want to happen to the game. Need respect and stop taking us for granted,” Gayle said on his Twitter feed. The WICB said the boycott was “extremely ill advised and premature” and said it considered negotiations with the WIPA were ongoing. Bangladesh was hopeful that its Test series against West Indies will proceed as planned. “It is very much an internal affair of the West Indies. They did not inform us of anything yet, so we assume that the series will go ahead as planned,” Bangladesh Cricket Board spokesman Jalal Yunus told reporters in Dhaka on Wednesday. Akhtar targets Lanka ODIs Injury-prone paceman Shoaib Akhtar said Wednesday he wants to return to international cricket in the one-day series against Sri Lanka after missing out on Pakistan's World Twenty20 triumph. The 33-year-old was withdrawn a week before the start of the World Twenty20 last month – which Pakistan won by beating Sri Lanka – after a doctor said the player was suffering from genital viral warts. “I have attained full fitness and have been gaining rhythm in bowling. I hope to stage a comeback in the one-day series against Sri Lanka, if I am selected,” he said. Pakistan's interim chief selector Wasim Bari said the team for the one-day series against Sri Lanka will be announced next week. He said Akhtar and fellow paceman Mohammad Asif will also be considered for the preliminary squad for September-October Champions Trophy in South Africa. Yousuf back on top Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf moved to the top of the official Test rankings for batsmen this week after his first Test since being recalled on quitting the unofficial Indian Cricket League. Yousuf struck 112 and 12 to give his side the upper hand against Sri Lanka before it dramatically collapsed to lose the opening Test on Tuesday. Yousuf toppled countryman Younus Khan to move to the top of the rankings for the first time in his career, a statement from the International Cricket Council said on Wednesday. Yousuf, 2007 ICC cricketer of the year, was second when he was removed from the rankings early in 2009 because Pakistan had not played a Test match since the qualifying date.
