Amidst all the neg­a­tiv­i­ty in terms of fi­nances sur­round­ing West In­dies crick­et re­cent­ly, there was some good news com­ing to hand on Tues­day as the board is pro­cess­ing pay­ments for In­ter­na­tion­al match­es that were due to play­ers.

This was con­firmed by chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) John­ny Grave who said: "It has been dif­fi­cult and the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion has not made it any bet­ter but we are tak­ing steps in the right di­rec­tion when it comes to the fi­nances. We are at the mo­ment pro­cess­ing pay­ments for our women and men in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers.

"The women crick­eters will be get­ting their pay­ments over the next cou­ple days for the Twen­ty20 (T20) World Cup, while the men will be get­ting their fees for the Ire­land and Sri Lankan tour. This will mean that we are up to date with pay­ments for our in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eters.

"If the tour of Eng­land comes through, we want to en­sure that we send our play­ers there all be­ing paid up and this is what we have done."

Graves added that there are still funds out­stand­ing and this is for re­gion­al play­ers who took part in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onships.

"We are still ow­ing the play­ers who took part in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onships but this will be done, al­though I can­not put a def­i­nite time­line on it at the mo­ment. Or­gan­is­ing fi­nances have been dif­fi­cult for us in this pe­ri­od of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic but we are do­ing our best to get to those play­ers.

"We owe them their match­es fees for the Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March pe­ri­od. We are try­ing our best to work through this dif­fi­cult time, bob­bing and weav­ing and keep­ing our heads above wa­ter. It is not easy as I said be­fore but we are try­ing our best at the mo­ment. Pay­ing our in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers at this time is good news and we will con­tin­ue to work to get every­one sort­ed out."

West In­dies crick­et has tak­en a fi­nan­cial hit over the past few years due to un­prof­itable home tours. Pres­i­dent of the board Ricky Sker­ritt said last week that they were to se­cure a tele­vi­sion deal for the New Zealand home se­ries this year but that tour is still in lim­bo with the on­go­ing coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, which will not help the sit­u­a­tion in terms of the fi­nances of the re­gion­al crick­et body.