THERE was uncertainty late yesterday regarding when, or if, a proposed meeting will take place between Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Julian Hunte as part of an effort to diffuse tensions, mainly involving the continued exclusion of former West Indies captain Chris Gayle from the regional team.

The Jamaican government confirmed early yesterday that Hunte had requested a meeting with Simpson Miller today.

“No time has been set but a request has been made for the president of the WICB to meet with the prime minister on Wednesday (today),” Senator Sandrea Falconer, minister without portfolio with responsibility for information, told the Observer yesterday morning.

However, a check with Falconer in late afternoon revealed uncertainty as to when, or if, the WICB president would arrive in Jamaica.

“It’s now 5:20 pm and we have not heard any further word from Mr Hunte and the prime minister does have a very busy schedule on Wednesday…,” Falconer said.

News broke on Monday that Hunte, a former St Lucian foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations, had decided at a meeting of WICB directors in St Lucia on the weekend to personally apologise to Simpson Miller for comments deemed “inappropriate” in a statement issued by the WICB secretariat last week.

The Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) and Simpson Miller responded furiously to the comments from the WICB secretariat which substantially said the Jamaican prime minister had spoken from a position of ignorance when she addressed issues involving regional cricket at a JCA awards dinner recently.

Jamaican anger was heightened by a suggestion in the WICB statement which appeared to liken the standoff between the WICB and Gayle to a hypothetical situation involving a prime minister and a Cabinet member.

Simpson Miller had weighed in on the Gayle issue as well as the non-inclusion of Jamaica as a venue for the upcoming Australia tour of the Caribbean.

Gayle has not played for the West Indies since the ICC World Cup in Asia last year following a quarrel with the cricket authorities. The WICB secretariat is demanding that Gayle apologise for remarks he made last year about Windies coach Ottis Gibson and the WICB.

A resolution moved by the JCA at the weekend’s WICB directors’ meeting for Gayle to be reinstated to the West Indies team was rejected.