 Yes, we're in the middle of this historic presentation of the Sports Mac Zone where a few minutes ago we witnessed the signing of an MOU between Cricket West Indies and the West Indies Players Association and Dr. Kishor Shalil, president of Cricket West Indies, CEO, Johnny Grave and Miles Baskham, who is director of Cricket West Indies, about to discuss with us some of the key issues with this MOU. Let me start here, Dr. Shalil, because I was retracing some of the pronouncements of former presidents of Cricket West Indies, well, as far back as when it was West Indies Cricket Board. And I saw an October 2003 comment from Teddy Griffith, who was president at the time, targeting a top three spot in the rankings for West Indies Cricket, because they were actually eighth at the time in Test Cricket, which we are now, so I could interpret from that, that 20 years ago today, there's a lot about West Indies Cricket that hasn't changed. The unity that we just saw and the sort of harmony that we just saw with the signing of the MOU, critical, so many key issues here. Teddy Griffith did say, as I just mentioned, that he would wish to have the team consolidate this position in a top three position in the countries, as I said at the time, they were ranked eighth. But as I said when I spoke to Mariah earlier on, MOUs between Cricket West Indies and the West Indies Players Association haven't always been harmonious, and we have seen cases of real contentious, combative stances between the two bodies. I'm not getting the impression here, a good sign that you're on the same page, it seems. Certainly positive launch, and I'll go even further back to Sir Wesley Hall, when he was president, and he would have made reference as well to some of the deficiencies that we had there, and made some suggestions. Some of those issues are still relevant today, but I'm quite pleased with at least being able to achieve what I consider to be a very good and productive work in relationship with West Indies Players Association. I want to express my appreciation to President Wavell Hines and his entire team, including Wayne Lewis and the others. It is remarkable, great representation of the members who are very important stakeholders of West Indies Cricket. With this MOU, there's a degree of excitement about us not only addressing matters for men, but also the issues surrounding women's cricket, and I'm sure that many today current and future players are very inspired by this MOU. I want to go back quickly to the graphic that we just showed, because Ken Gordon was the West Indies Cricket board president that came immediately after Teddy Griffith, and after the team's disappointing showing at the 2007 World Cup, which was hosted in the Caribbean. He had suggested that this issue of changing little by little things regarding the governance of West Indies Cricket needed to be changed, and the incremental approach he said to change that was used in the past did not and will not work, and the rebuilding process would have to see drastic changes. Can you talk to me about governance of West Indies Cricket in the past years that you've followed and what this MOU represents now, and if it is, as Ken Gordon had said 14, 15 years ago, there was a need for drastic changes and not incremental changes. Does this MOU, as far as you're concerned, represent solid, massive changes, or is it just tweaking some of the things that you've had before? This is a significant step in West Indies Cricket. Just the fact that you have our entire, you know, the stakeholders in this case, all the players, both male and female, being addressing this and there are other matters, other issues that you would see once you really, you know, of course at some point we'll release the MOU to the public, but you would see that there are changes there in the entire system, in the entire shop-gen relationship between the two parties that are going to impact the development of West Indies Cricket. And what we want is to encourage players. Players must have confidence in this system. There are other challenges that we currently face with franchise cricket and so on, and in this case what I believe we are doing is be proactive in addressing these before we start for a talent gene for our players. So I would say a remarkable step, and again I commend all those involved in the negotiations. I mean it has taken months as you would imagine, and so to get to this stage is a remarkable achievement. Yeah, Ricardo, we'll talk with the Weeper representatives Lewis and Heinz in just a moment, but Johnny, as the CEO of Cricket West Indies, I know you bear the brunt of a lot of criticism from Caribbean fans who decades ago would be gloating and boasting globally about the dominance of West Indies Cricket, and it's into three decades now that the team has been struggling. One of the significant things I saw come out in the past couple of weeks is the price money increase from US $30,000 for last year's four-day championship winners to US $250,000. That's a massive leap, isn't it? Yeah, I think all the headlines from this deal are remarkable, they are historic I think. We've got over the period of the next four years a framework to pay upwards of US$2.5 million to our international players in prize money, and a similar amount for the regional players as well. So there's a real focus that we've put on this in terms of rewarding performances. We want to have a structure where the best players who perform individually and collectively benefit the most, and so the move towards increased prize money, the move to reward players who get into the starting 11 rather than just sort of coast in squads has all been part of a strategic move to make the system tougher, reward performances and get a real focus on winning. Yeah, one of the problematic issues for West Indies Cricket in the past, Johnny, has been attracting major sponsorship to financially boost the infrastructure of the game in the region. Looking at this MOU, do you think it will attract the kind of financial input that you would need throughout the region to help to boost the project? Yeah, look, we certainly hope so. I mean, we've had two very, very good years financially in 2021. We had a deficit of over US$23 million. We're now sitting here subject to the final audit with over US$12 million in surplus. And we're forecasting obviously a very good year this year. We had England to kick off the financial year, come to the region, and we've got the World Cup that we're hosting in June. So it needs to be a very good year because 2025 and 2026 will be more difficult years for us, where we don't have England or India touring. But the nature of the business now is that we're working on a four-year cycle. So it's really important that we plan for when England and India come and then we have that money retained to get through the years when they don't, but we don't have to adjust our cricket systems and structures. So to align the Weeper MOU for four years with our business model for four years is really, really important. And I think to have what we're forecasting to be US$60 million going to players over the next four years is a massive moment, an historical moment for our players. And for us, we're confident with the long-term agreements we have in place and with everything that we're doing, we can attract more long-term partners to hopefully surpass those numbers. This is all forecasts. And obviously, we want to be in a position where at some point in this MOU, we can go even further to reward our best-performing players and teams. As you talk about the issues of funding and so on, you were in the international media in the past couple of weeks, Johnny, talking about the structure of a test cricket, how it is set up financially, just before Dave Cameron was beaten by Ricky Scarrett for the presidency in 2019. We have a graphic there about something he had said, which I think is instructive to the same comments that you had made. And he had referenced the structure of the international game at the moment. And some of his comments had sounded pretty similar to some of the things you said with England, Australia and India, their posture in the financial setup in international cricket. And he did suggest then that there would be a need to put proper finances in place for the medium to long-term while they try to change the economics of world cricket. Can you for the benefit of our Sports Mac Zone viewers now just reference quickly the point you were making recently regarding the financial setup of international test cricket and how it affects negatively West Indies cricket? Yeah, the model at the moment is very much that when the home team receives tours or host tours, they keep all the revenue. And consequently, when you go away from home, you pay for all your players and you pay the international airfares to get there. And then the opposition board, the host board, in that respect for away games retains all the revenue. So we have a very high cost base here in the West Indies and we have a relatively low economic base. So we've got the two effects really, high costs and low revenue for when we host teams and obviously when we go away, there's enormous revenues from the major market. So there's a big advantage to those other boards. And we just think that world cricket could be so much better if we shared a more equitable distribution of the revenues. And we continue to make those points. We made some games and obviously in the past eight years, all the men's events for the World Cup were hosted by the big three. We're now about to embark on hosting a Men's T20 World Cup. We'll have a big economic impact on the organisation as well as the whole region. So there have been changes made and obviously England and India can't tour us really any more than they could in the last couple of years. But that's not really sustainable and can't benefit everyone. So we continue to talk and lobby for more of a sort of collaborative approach, more revenue sharing because there's never been more money in the game. And hopefully there's enough to go around for everyone to thrive. And that's certainly our aim across the three formats. And as you've seen here today as well for the women's game, which is growing immensely. Yeah, Miles Vascum, you're in your first year as director of cricket with cricket West Indies. And I saw where with the MOU, some of the issues that are going to be addressed, CWI fitness and conditioning plan and policy. That has been something that had been visited in previous administrations. Can you hint as to what direction your committee is looking at with regard to this fitness and conditioning plan and policy? Sure. I think the first thing is that we would like a fitness policy that has less of an effect on selection. So that has been a contentious issue over the last few years. And we also want something that is holistic and all-encompassing, speaking to return to play protocols and something that is quite holistic and looks at the entire picture. Can you expand on the point that you just made about the selection tying in with the fitness and conditioning policy as far as the selectors are concerned? So previously we had a minimum criteria for selection. So that would have prevented some players from being able to be selected because the policy was that as a selection panel, you couldn't consider a player until they have met that minimum criteria. And obviously we know the nuances of fitness, different people you have, you don't expect everybody to meet the same benchmark at the same time. So we want that to have less of an effect. So that is one thing that we will certainly look at closely and is likely to change. The NOC certificates with regard to players, I see we're international, that has been in the news recently. Is that something that you consider as far as the MOU is concerned, an urgent issue to deal with with West Indus Cricket? I don't think we have a great issue where that is concerned. Generally we give our players the NOCs. We don't want to prevent anybody from owning. We have embark on having more communication with our players so that way we can really have a good relationship. We want, while we want to safeguard West Indus Cricket and show that we have the best players playing, we are aware of what the global cricket landscape looks like. And so we have to be resilient and I think going forward in our approach, we are going to try to communicate more so that at the start of the year we have a better picture of who would be available when, who would have engagements outside and try our best to make sure that we have competitive West Indus teams going out on tours. Dr. Shalo, when you came in as vice president with Ricky Skerrit as your president in 2019, you did come to the table as, for one of a better term, a player-friendly administration. You did present a project that appeared to be player-inclusive and are you satisfied that this recent administration is continuing in that line and is that part of the reason why your relationship with Weeper at the moment seems to be good? A critical component that I campaigned on last year before taking on the presidency of Cricket West Indus was to strengthen the relationship between CW and all the stakeholders. The players, as I mentioned earlier, they are critical. Weeper represents the interests of not only players really, but the entire cricket landscape, cricket West Indus. And I think that is why we have been able to arrive at this MOU, which is favorable to board parties. But this is not unique to just the players. I believe that we need to strengthen our relationship with governments, corporate, Caribbean, and other stakeholders. So this yes, Lance, I do agree that it is critical, but it cannot be just between the players and Cricket West Indus, it has to be with all our stakeholders. Yeah. And I guess having this Sportsmax presentation today and how the platform is for us at the moment, it's kind of good that the boys did so well last night in Brisbane. They showed a lot of fight. They did. And you know, I've seen it in matches over the last few months as well, series against India and England, and they continue in Australia. And I have absolutely no doubt that they're going to continue to represent us well and make us proud. Thank you very much, Dr. Shalo. CEO, Johnny Grave, and Miles Baskham, who is the Director of Cricket with Cricket West Indus at the moment, just in the past half an hour, signing an MOU with the West Indus Players Association with Waverhines, the president getting ready along with Wayne Lewis to talk to Ricardo Chambers after the break.