Referring to the board's decision to sack seven senior players including Brian Lara, Richardson told the Antigua Sun, "I am not totally surprised, but I am really disappointed. It's really sad. For some of our best players to be fit and not be represented on the West Indies team, is very disappointing and very disturbing."

Teddy Griffith, the president of WICB, had announced last week that seven players including Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, would not be considered for selection for the forthcoming series against South Africa and Pakistan, due to their individual sponsorship deals with Cable and Wireless, a rival of the board's current sponsor Digicel.

Richardson said that the board should have settled the issues long time ago. "For these things to happen, I think it is really poor. We should be focussing on trying to make sure that West Indies cricket is returned to what it was sometime ago and not to be making silly mistakes and having fights between the board and players. It's just going to make things even worse."

The issue cropped up in December last year and since then the board has failed to resolve the crisis. "We've had a number problems over the years, and the game has advanced and we have remained stagnant, if not retrogressed," he continued, "I believe the best thing for West Indies cricket right now is to give somebody who has serious money and who is a serious businessman and who is willing to invest in West Indies cricket and restore it. The biggest downfall in West Indies cricket is the administration.

"I was frustrated with a lot of things as West Indies captain," Richardson, who led the team in 24 Tests, added, "I just thought when are we going to start realising that everybody is changing and we have got to move with the times." He also said that the board never respected the players, even dating back to the era of Lloyd, and "we got the impression then that all that we could do was to play cricket."

Richardson stressed that the game was bigger than everybody and all that were involved in the current dispute need to "come together and resolve this."