(CMC) – Cricket West Indies (CWI) has refuted claims by former bowler Shaquana Quintyne that she was abandoned by the region’s governing body for cricket after being injured three years ago.

CEO Johnny Grave on Tuesday night described her allegations, levelled in an interview with the Barbados Today online publication here, as “hugely disappointing and … massively damaging to our reputation”.

Far from leaving Quintyne to fend for herself after she sustained a “dreadful” injury during a West Indies Women’s training camp at Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua in 2017, Grave said CWI footed the bill for her surgeries.

The 24-year-old former Barbados and West Indies cricketer recalled that the cruciate ligaments in her right knee tore when she dived to stop a ball while fielding at extra-cover during a practice session.

The devastating injury brought the right-arm leg-spin bowler’s promising international career to an end, and she claimed that although the incident occurred while she was a contracted player, CWI had abandoned her.
However, Grave denied that was the case and described the Barbados Today article as “misleading”.

“It’s hugely disappointing for me to read a story that is so far removed from the truth,” he said on the Mason and Guest radio programme, insisting that CWI had gone to great lengths to care for West Indies players.

“I’ll refute it in the strongest possible terms. We have provided enormous financial support and medical support for Shaquana…. I won’t go into details but it is fair to say we have provided significant financial assistance and medical support and paid huge sums of money for her to try and get her career back and get back to full fitness.”
However, Grave did admit that the injury sustained by the young cricketer, who made her debut for the West Indies in 2011 when she was just 15, was one from which it is extremely difficult to return to full fitness.

“A cruciate knee ligament injury is one of the worst any sportsperson can get. And, therefore, to come back from injury like that she had to do more than one operation. A horrible situation for her – one that you would never want any player to go through in one’s career,” he said.

“She required multiple operations and CWI paid for those operations. That’s a fact.”
Grave pointed out that while there was no insurance policy in 2017 that would have covered Quintyne’s injury, as there is now, CWI dealt with the-then 21-year-old as if such a policy was in place.

Quintyne had also complained that she lost her contract a few months after the injury, after having scored 482 runs and taken 35 wickets in 40 ODIs and playing 45 T20 matches in which she amassed 182 runs and took 39 wickets for the regional team.
“She did get injured and when it came to awarding the new 15 contracts to players she wasn’t part of that 15,” Grave acknowledged, although stressing that CWI still continued to take care of Quintyne, paying her for 52 weeks after the injury.

Quintyne told Barbados Today that she has filed a lawsuit against CWI, but Grave said while there had been exchanges with her representatives previously there had been no discussion in over a year.

“Certainly, we’re not aware of any legal action filed by her or on her behalf,” he said.
Quintyne played her last International match against India at the Vijayawada Stadium in November 2016.

She said she is making preparation for life after cricket, with the hope of becoming a personal trainer at some point.

“In that way, I will still be associated with sports and will be making a contribution to persons who are playing some form of sports or those who are just interested in pursuing a healthy lifestyle,” she told Barbados Today.

That, Grave said, was the “only positive” he had taken from the article.
“It sounds like she’s recovered from her injury and is making the transition to the new career,” the CWI CEO said.