FOR the second time in the past seven years Brian Lara has been dropped by West Indies over a commercial dispute. He and six other players were omitted yesterday from a squad of 22 players named for the home series against South Africa and Pakistan, starting this month.

A meeting called for today by the Prime Minister of Grenada offers hope that the latest crisis will be resolved, after a series of skirmishes in the past six months between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the players’ association, but nothing is guaranteed in the volatile atmosphere of Caribbean cricket.

Officially Lara, who survived a similar dispute during his first phase as West Indies captain, has been ruled out of contention with three other key members of the team, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo. The WICB named a 22-man squad that did not include any of the players who signed personal deals with Cable and Wireless in rivalry to Digicel, the WICB’s main sponsors.

The chosen squad included six uncapped players — Ryan Ramdas, Narsingh Deonarine, Darren Sammy, Donovan Pagon, Denish Ramdin and Dwight Washington. Three fast bowlers, Darren Powell, Jerome Taylor and Tino Best have all been recalled, Best having recovered from the stress fracture he suffered in England last year.

The commercial battle became inevitable sooner or later when, shortly before the West Indies arrived in England last June, the WICB took on Digicel under improved terms, reported to be more than £10 million over five years, after longstanding support from Cable and Wireless. The latter responded by signing up Lara and other senior players.

There are echoes here of the battle between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the ICC before the last World Cup over the sponsorship of individual India players, notably Sachin Tendulkar. The legal wrangle over that issue has still not been fully resolved.

The clearest parallel to the present crisis, however, occurred in November, 1998, when the entire West Indies team was holed up in a hotel at Heathrow Airport for a week on its way to South Africa. Lara, the captain, Carl Hooper, his deputy, and Courtney Walsh, then president of the players’ association, were the main protesters in a dispute over tour payments. Lara and Hooper were officially sacked but player power won, up to a point. After 19 hours of talks, the original team toured, only to lose a series 5-0 for the first time in West Indies history.

The result was the same in England last year and despite the economic opportunities raised by staging the next World Cup in 2007, West Indies’ long slide from world pre-eminence in the 1980s will not be halted by the present impasse.

A little under a year after making the highest Test score, 400 not out, for the second time in his career, Lara is no less a controversial figure in his home islands. He called for compromise in his column in the Trinidad Guardian at the weekend, however, and so has Keith Mitchell, the Grenada premier who is also chairman of the Caribbean Community’s sub-committee on cricket.

“There are some reasonable proposals put forward, so that can lead to some sort of compromise solution” he said on the eve of a meeting with representatives of the Board, the West Indies Players’ Association and the two companies. “I suggest a lot of sincere apologies — private apologies — would pave that way forward, and once an apology is offered, let the issue be dropped once and for all,” Lara said.

There is much still to admire about West Indies cricket, not least their supreme batsman, but recent history does not, unfortunately, suggest that hatchets will be buried for long.