Anthony Foster, Freelance writer

West Indies middle-order batsman Marlon Samuels. - File

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has delayed its probe into middle-order batsman Marlon Samuels' relationship with an Indian bookmaker because Dr. Julian Hunt, the WICB president, says they cannot investigate until they are notified about the nature of the charge.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had directed the WICB to launch an investigation last week.

Requesting report

However, Dr. Hunt said yesterday: "What the WICB has done is to write to the ICC, asking them for a copy of the report, so that we will know what Samuels has been charged with."

The WICB president, who attended a reception which the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) hosted yesterday at Sabina Park for its senior and Under-19 teams that won one-day titles this year, says this would help them to chart a course for their investigations.

"The WICB will await receipt of the report to enable it to determine how it proceeds to carry out an investigation, if any, in terms of the Samuels affair," added the St. Lucian.

Before his explanation, Hunt expressed surprise over the issue, which first surfaced and dominated public attention ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 in the Caribbean.

News of Samuels' relationship with the bookie broke when Indian police claimed he passed on confidential team information to a bookmaker on the eve of the first One-Day International in Nagpur on January 21.

The sport's world governing disclosed last week that it considered the report and the recommendation of its anti-corruption and security unit concerning allegations of inappro-priate activity by Samuels in India in January this year.

The WICB promised Samuels: "What I can promise, whatever we put in place will be fair and transparent, and Samuels, should have no fear."

He was unable to say whether the investigation will affect Samuels' chance of being selected for the tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa later this year.

"I honestly do not know...and this is the honest, possible truth. A lot depends on the selectors, a lot depends on when the investigation is started, and they are so many imponderables that it would be wrong for me to speculate," he explained.

Look at performance

Dr. Hunt also issued a warning by saying cricket cannot survive at this rate in the Caribbean.

"What I am portraying is a situation where we have to look at how we perform," he stated. 'Wwe are almost at the bottom. To get to the top, we have to perform at the highest level and everything must be done to introduce incentives, and penalties, if we are to introduce a system, which makes performance the centre of what we have to do in West Indies cricket.

"The better we perform is the more money we make. The more money the players make, the more money we have for the development of our cricket and this is what must drive us now."