Vin­ode Mam­chan

In a move that can on­ly be de­scribed as re­fresh­ing, the West In­dies Crick­et Board (Wipa) have de­cid­ed to come to­geth­er to stage the 2013 play­ers awards func­tion.

The awards func­tion which en­ters its ninth year, was pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Wipa Awards but now it will be known as the West In­dies An­nu­al Awards Func­tion. WICB di­rec­tor Bal­dath Ma­habir con­firmed that the awards would be tak­en care of by both bod­ies and are card­ed for Ju­ly 4 at the Hy­att Re­gency in Trinidad.

He said: "This move by both bod­ies is wel­come at this time in world crick­et. The func­tion will be held at the same time when In­dia and Sri Lan­ka are play­ing in Trinidad, so the world will see that the WICB and Wipa are now unit­ed. They would have seen in the re­cent past with dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions on both sides that they were at log­ger­heads.

"The guys that are here now want to work to­geth­er for the bet­ter­ment of the game in the Caribbean and this is a ma­jor step for­ward in achiev­ing that goal. This func­tion and com­ing to­geth­er of both bod­ies will au­gur well for the fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et."

The WICB and Wipa will fund the func­tion and to help off­set some of the ex­pens­es they have de­cid­ed to sell tick­ets for com­pa­nies to at­tend the func­tion.

Ma­habir, the head of the WICB, Mar­ket­ing arm, said: "We have al­ready sent out spon­sor­ship pack­ages to com­pa­nies and we are con­fi­dent they would but in.

"I think this sig­nal by both par­ties will get peo­ple ex­cit­ed and they would want to come on board and sup­port. Wipa has staged this func­tion for many years and hats off to them for a job well done. I know that the for­mer pres­i­dent of the WICB Julien Hunte would have at­tend­ed these func­tions but I don't know if the WICB helped fund the events.

"What I know now is that I the WICB is part of this and we are ex­cit­ed about the event. We have seen im­prove­ments on the field of play by our re­gion­al play­ers and now we are see­ing im­prove­ments off the field of play as well."