England Test Would Be 'Certainty' If ECB Assist, Financially-Burdened CWI Says On Women's Landmark Match

(MENAFN- IANS) New Delhi, Oct 9 (IANS) Cricket West Indies chief executive Chris Dehring stated that the board is hopeful of staging the one-off Test between the West Indies and England and that help from the England and Wales Cricket Board would certainly help keep the match alive.

Recently, ECB chair Richard Thompson had stated that the English board can step in and help fund the hosts for the Test match after CWI revealed financial struggles the board is facing.

"We would welcome any assistance from our much wealthier member boards," Dehring said, as quoted by BBC Sport, over possible help from the ECB for the Test. "It is very expensive to host cricket in the Caribbean."

The Test, if played, will help provide crucial practice for England ahead of the Women's Ashes next summer and will be the first Test for the Windies since 2004. England are due to play three ODIs and three T20Is too on the same trip to the Caribbean in April and May. However, hosting the Test match would be a challenge for CWI logistically too, Dehring highlighted.

"We have to fly all of the equipment and crew into any venue to be able to broadcast a match," Dehring said. "That is a significant figure. Sky doesn't have to fly from London to Manchester for one match," he added.

He emphasised that there is interest in hosting Test cricket and that they are hopeful of staging the match on their own, but assistance from the ECB would make it a different ball game altogether. "Once we develop a schedule, we will know how much it will cost," he added.

"It is far cheaper to host everything in one location, but one of the allures of the Caribbean being able to travel to more than one location for matches.

"We are hoping still we will be able to cover from our own resources, but it (the Test) would be a certainty if the ECB were to assist us," he said.

Thompson had earlier suggested that the ECB can fund the match. "We will definitely look at it," Thompson said. "Look what we did with Zimbabwe two years ago. Look, it will be awful for the West Indies. We want that Test match to play out.

"It's very important for us because our first women's match in the Ashes is the Headingley Test match. So we need a good red-ball warm-up. We've got to be playing somewhere, and I think we'd much prefer to be playing in the West Indies," he added.

This came after CWI announced a 25% cut of retainer fees as part of raft measures due to what it termed "a comprehensive counterattack against all the challenges we face financially, developmentally and competitively".

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