In any sport, the victory of minnows over champions is often regarded as an ‘ambush’ or an ‘upset’.

Last week, the cricket world witnessed one of these 'upsets' when Bangladesh, the babies of Test cricket, spun their way to victory against the West Indies. But the incident didn’t raise many eyebrows on either side, as everyone was aware of the cause of the result.

With more than 30 senior West Indian players refusing the board’s invitation to play in the ongoing series, authorities had to experiment with a dozen teenagers who are yet to overcome the shock of getting selected to the national team, plus a couple of veterans like Tino Best, who received another maroon cap after a long interval.

The current ‘salary-saga’ going on between the players and authorities is not new to the Caribbean Islands.

The history of conflicts over pay between West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and players dates back to as early as 1998, when the tour of South Africa almost got no further than London's Heathrow Airport after the players, weary with poor treatment and broken promises, decided enough was enough and took on their cricket board.

Eleven years have passed since then and the scenario does not seem to have changed much. Only the characters and their designations have changed. The story has been pretty much the same.

One of the senior players in the 1998 showdown was Jimmy Adams. Today he is the honorary secretary of the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and putting his efforts back into the game. But while Adams has moved on, the conflict between the board and players has only grown worse.

In an exclusive interview with Cricinfo, Adams shared his bitter experiences on the issue: "This has been going on since my time as a player, but I thought we had gone past that. The generation before didn't have choices, so the board could always hold a wage above them and dictate whatever they wanted.

''It's the first time we've had a players' association that's effective. In the past, we had some associations that were a waste of space. [This time] the players weren't going to walk away, and the board knew that”.

While the rest of the cricket world is preparing teams with an eye on the next World Cup and other important tournaments, here we have the WICB trying to kill the game in the Caribbean through thoughtless actions, despotic rule and close-minded attitude.

Adams says: "The board want us to run ahead and sign, but it would be a dereliction of duty to take a quick decision. We want all these issues dealt with. They want to say, 'All you need to do is agree a figure and you should forget about everything else.' That was sports management in 1952”.

Many cricketers have described the WICB policies and mindset as primitive and outdated. Adams hit hard at the WICB in Cricinfo when he said: “In the modern era of sports management, the current mindset of the WICB isn't going to work.

''Whether they can get a change in mindset by a complete shake-up or actually get people to think a little bit differently, I don't know. But I do know, if you're doing something over and over again and you're getting these results and you don't change, then it's the first sign of insanity.

''Somewhere along the line you're going to have to try something different”.

Any sensible person will understand that if West Indies cricket is to progress any further they need to sort out the current tension, which has been for the past 11 years.

Challenging the existing players by replacing them with immature teenagers does more harm than good to Caribbean cricket. If they continue, they may meet with the same fate as Zimbabwe, who dug their own grave through a similar act.

Adams says that the WICB can only attain temporary solace by experimenting with the ‘B’ team. The system itself has to be changed, without which, after a couple of years, the same problem will arise.

“I feel that inevitably, if we select these 19-year-olds, then sooner or later they're going to be exposed to proper sports management outside the Caribbean, and at some point, when they're in a position to understand what's happening, we're going to come back to this situation again."

He feels that in five or seven years time they'll be going back down the same road - and there will be the same issues.