Talks over West Indies cricket players' strike fail

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Talks between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the players' union ended after just 23 minutes on Thursday when the board refused to negotiate while the players remained on strike.

The leading test players from the Caribbean have boycotted the series against Bangladesh, which began with the first test on Thursday, due to a dispute about contracts and payments.

While a makeshift West Indies team took the field in St. Vincent, negotiating teams from the board and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) met at a hotel in the Trinidad capital to try to hammer out an agreement.

The meeting lasted just 23 minutes.

A statement from the board said they had agreed to pay what they called their 'former players' amounts based on previous negotiations as an "act of good faith" but no progress was made on the series of issues highlighted by the WIPA, including retainer contracts.

"WICB impressed upon WIPA that it was not prepared, consistent with good industrial relations practices, to negotiate under duress, and insisted that before any good faith negotiations commenced, the players' strike would first have to end," read the statement from the board.

"WIPA refused and the meeting, which had begun at 9.37 a.m., concluded at 10 a.m.."

None of the 13 players initially selected for the first test against Bangladesh appeared in the game and the board was forced to swiftly assemble a team featuring seven uncapped players, following the strike announcement on Tuesday.