Senior West Indies player, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, has sought to silence persons who claim regional players are not committed to West Indies cricket and are motivated only by money.

"ICL (Indian Cricket League) offered us a whole heap of money and we put that aside and we went to Zimbabwe and South Africa (in December to February) and played... I'm talking about millions of dollars and we put that aside just because we want to play west Indies cricket," Chanderpaul told the Observer in an exclusive interview yesterday. The ICL, the break-away Indian League, was not sanctioned by the International Cricket Council.

However, top West Indies players Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo and Chanderpaul signed up with the ICC sanctioned Indian Premier League. The IPL is a franchise-based Twenty20 competition organised by the BCCI. The inaugural edition of the tournament, which started on April 18 and ends on June 1, features the world's best cricketers playing for eight city-based franchises.

There has been some criticism of the West Indies Cricket Board for allowing the players to return home from India just days before the start of the first Test, while Australia withdrew their players from the IPL for a pre-tour camp weeks before travelling to the region.

There have even been questions about the commitment of the players to West Indies cricket.

However, the left-handed Chanderpaul, who wins his 110th cap for the regional side in today's First Digicel Test at Sabina Park, said the players are very committed to West Indies cricket.

"IPL is a legal league and it allows us to do both, so why shouldn't we take that opportunity...? We didn't do anything wrong; we did what was asked. We got permission from the board (WICB) and they asked us to come back at a certain time and we all came back before the time," the affable former captain stated, noting that Bravo was the only player to return to the Caribbean late.

"... I came back before most of the other guys. Maybe Chris was the only one that came back before me because of injury. I came back on the 14th, Sarwan also came home on the 14th and we were out there practising too," added Chanderpaul, who has a Test average of 47.24 from 109 matches.

The West Indies are hosting Australia in three Tests, five One-Day Internationals and a Twenty20 International.

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