 Welcome back to the Sportsmax Zone as mentioned earlier. There is a high power team of cricket officials here in studio with us today. From Cricket West Indies, we have President Dr. Kishore Shalo, CEO of Cricket West Indies, Johnny Grave and Director of Cricket at Cricket West Indies, Miles Baskham. The delegation from the West Indies Players Association is led by President Wavelle Hines and he is accompanied by the honorary General Secretary of Weepo, Wayne Lewis. However, without further delay, I'll now invite CWI President Dr. Kishore Shalo to present his message to the many stakeholders of West Indies Cricket. Thank you, Mariah. Nearly one year ago, I assumed the role of President of Cricket West Indies and from the outset, I emphasised the significant responsibilities that come with this role. Today, I wish to reiterate that there is no underestimation of the substantial workload associated with this office. Nevertheless, I accepted this responsibility with intention to serve the people of our cherished region. I highlighted then as I highlight now and as I emphasise now that our understanding, respect and appreciation for the enduring value of cricket has a very core of our identity. The West Indies is not merely a geographic term, it is a collective of people intricately connected by the essence of cricket. This game deeply rooted in our hearts continues to shape us as a people. And in my ongoing service, I wish to thank persons who have supported the journey for the last few months, my esteemed Vice President as in Bazarat, my board, key stakeholders, of course, including my management, CEO Johnny Grave, Director of Cricketmires Basketball and others at the Secretary to Nantiga and throughout the entire system. And of course, our strategic partners. And I will of course start with Sportsmax as one, of course. And our government, heads of governments who continue to support West Indies Cricket, and I'm quite heartened to have with us today, Weeper, West Indies Press Association President Wever Hines and of course the Honorary Secretary Wayne Lewis. And it is truly his collaborative endeavours of these stakeholders that we are positioned to continue making significant strides in proudly hoisting the West Indies flag as we anticipate the upcoming T20 World Cup in June later this year, promising to be a global spectacle in our region in a few months. I'm not only filled with excitement, but immense pride. The future of West Indies Cricket is undeniably bright, and this is not blindfolded optimism by any means. And today, I present to you some of the reasons why I share that sentiment which has been echoed by many across the region. In the last few months, we have been engaged at Cricket West Indies with negotiations with Weeper, West Indies Press Association, to chart the course for a more inclusive and result-oriented approach in a memorandum of understanding. I can report that we conclude these negotiations no different than we started months ago with the best interest of Cricket at heart. And so, I'm delighted to share with you five of these, and later on you will hear from President Wave and Heinz who would elaborate on some of these. One, enhanced team price, money and individual player rewards, potential for multi-year retainers' contract, increase men's match fees, retention policy for overseas domestic tournaments, and of course, some of the best for last, equality for women's cricketers in our region. These provisions underscore our commitment to creating an environment where players strived and West Indies Cricket continues to shine on the global stage. I'm quite happy to say that we do not conclude here as Cricket West Indies and Weeper, but we will continue to work effortlessly to update the following framework, fitness and conditioning, selection policy and NSEs. As we embark on this transformative journey for Cricket West Indies, let me thank everyone who has contributed again to the success thus far, and we look forward to creating more success in the coming months. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Shalo. There you heard from the president of Cricket West Indies, Dr. Shalo, ahead of this monumental occasion, which will see Cricket West Indies and the West Indies Players Association signing a memorandum of understanding. I'll now invite Wevel Hines, the president of the West Indies Players Association, to deliver his address. Wevel? Thank you. Good evening to the Caribbean. Good evening to our audience. It is indeed a pleasure for the West Indies Players Association to be associated with the West Indies Cricket again. Firstly, I want to thank all my members, thank the executive members of the Players Association and staff, and of course our partners, Cricket West Indies, in truly putting together a very good document, an MOU, that certainly can move West Indies Cricket forward. We are very mindful of the fact that the landscape of Cricket has changed as the calendar year remains at 12 months. The number of T20, T10 competitions that have populated that calendar is just growing on a daily basis. We are also mindful that it is an opportunity for our members or players or cricketers to earn a living on a consistent basis outside of the Caribbean. We are also very mindful that the budget on the very Cricket West Indies budget and the budget of the Caribbean, the economic budget, is not one that could carry the demands of international cricket. So we are very happy that our members or players are in a position to earn a living outside of the Caribbean. As it is now, we are operating on an MOU that has certainly been extended because of the nature of the negotiations and we look forward to having Cricket West Indies as our partner in making sure that we monitor these discussions, monitor these documents, and make sure that the implementation towards the benefit of our players are there. The welfare of our players are important, the rights and the benefits of our players are important and certainly we did not come to an agreement without the involvement of our esteemed players. We have a player advisory committee led and chaired by Barbeid, former Barbeidist captain or maybe still captain of the Barbeidist team, Ms. Shakira Selman, who is also a director of the West Indies Players Association. And the thank her and her team for their contributions. Captain Haley Mathews made her contribution in a very significant way and so did captain Rahman Pavel. So we had an all-inclusive approach where we had members from the AG and the last annual general meeting in Antigua who have nominated their respective supporting groups from the player group to join us at a negotiating table. We're looking forward to this. There are different increases in the different bands which most players would like to hear. And we are also very grateful that in what we are doing, we are also about gender equality and gender equity. And as such, we have managed to craft an agreement that will see between 2024 to 2027 where women cricketers will be on par with the men in terms of their payments. So it is indeed a great time for the West Indies Players Association. It is a good time for West Indies Cricket and we also look forward to making sure that from the regional level up, we are doing so. To go with that for regional women, we are looking to have at least six women contracted as professionals at a regional level and we look to grow those numbers in a very incremental way as we get to the end of the contract at the MOU in 2027. So it is indeed a great time for West Indies Cricket. We are very excited and we are looking forward to partnering with Cricket West Indies and our members to try and improve and move this forward. There are policies involved as it relates to maternity and we are under negotiations to deal with paternity policies to treat with our members as they deal with their personal family lives and how they can move that forward concurrently while being professional cricketers. So this is a very inspirational time for me. I am happy to be a part of it. I have been involved in excess of 20 years as an administrator for the West Indies Players Association and I am indeed happy to see where we are today. But when we started out, our women cricketers were earning $10 a day at the regional level. If they had a tournament for 15 days, they would get a $10 per day, which is $150. And at that time, when it happened back in 2014, I think Stefan and Taylor would have been the number one all around the world at that time. So if you make the comparison between then and now, we have certainly made some good strides going forward. So it is a very progressive agreement and we look to continue to grow that from strength to strength. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you so much Wevel. So there you have it, our address from Weeper President Wevel Hines, which followed an earlier address by President of Cricket West Indies, Dr. Kishore Shalo. Right after the break, we'll witness a never-before-seen event on regional television, the official signing of a memorandum of understanding between Cricket West Indies and the West Indies Players Association. Stay with us back with more right after the break.