BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC): St Vincent's Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, is advocating the assembling of a three-member CARICOM panel to help resolve the ongoing contract dispute between West Indies players, their union, WIPA, and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

In a letter to WICB president Dave Cameron last week, Gonsalves said the current crisis was too serious a matter to be solved by the board alone and suggested the wider engagement of CARICOM.

Gonsalves proposed the panel be comprised of current CARICOM chairman, Antigua's prime minister, Gaston Browne; Grenada's prime minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, and former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson.

Satisfactory

"I consider that a mature engagement with regional governments through CARICOM may assist in finding satisfactory ways to the impasse," Gonsalves wrote in the letter, which he read on the popular Mason and Guests cricket show on 92.9 FM Radio here Tuesday.

He added: "I do not think that this huge complicated issue can be handled in an ad hoc manner or by the WICB alone. This is an extraordinary enterprise, which takes us beyond the boundary."

The experienced leader, who played a key role in resolving the impasse between the WICB and Chris Gayle two years ago, said while his proposal was not a new one "the urgency of now demands its embrace".

According to Gonsalves' proposal, the CARICOM panel would focus not only on solving the current impasse, but on several other key issues in West Indies cricket. These include the sustainable funding of West Indies cricket, the reform of the management of the WICB and the tensions between the WICB and the Board of Control for Cricket in India.