The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) yesterday gave a hardline response to the abandoned West Indies tour, announcing it will initiate legal proceedings against the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and suspend all future series between the nations.

The West Indies cut their Indian trip short after the fourth one-day international in Dharmasala on Friday due to an internal contract dispute, a move that has caused considerable commercial fallout for the hosts.

Sri Lanka answered a call to play five One Day Internationals (ODI) to partially cover for the Windies, whose tour had one more ODI, one Twenty20 and three Test matches still to be played, but that has hardly placated the game’s most powerful national board.

A press release signed by board secretary Sanjay Patel confirmed that legal representatives will now be called, raising the prospect of a potentially crippling damages claim against the islanders, whose fragile finances are already threatened by the BCCI’s decision to withdraw from all existing agreements with the WICB — starting with a planned Caribbean visit in 2016.

The two brief bullet points which could plunge the troubled WICB into an even wider-scale crisis read: “1. BCCI will initiate legal proceedings against West Indies Cricket Board due to the abrupt cancellation of this tour.

“2. All Bilateral tours between BCCI and WICB stand suspended.”

The WICB’s board of directors are meeting in Barbados today and plan to issue a statement of their own upon its conclusion,

The West Indies team have been in dispute with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) over the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement and memorandum of understanding (MoU), which would see sponsorship payments reallocated to fund the wider professional game in the islands.

And with no agreement in sight the worst-case option of departing India with one ODI, a Twenty20 international and three Tests still to play was taken.

Some of the players involved were putting their own lucrative Indian Premier League contracts — or futures — at risk, but it is understood that no ban will be imposed on individuals taking part in that competition.

The WICB eventually made a conciliatory offer of sending a new group of players to fulfil the fixtures but with a guaranteed mis-match not proving appealing to the Indians or their commercial partners, a five-match one-day series against Sri Lanka was hastily fixed.

Those games have been confirmed to take place in Cuttack, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, with a detailed itinerary in the offing.

While West Indian relations with the game’s most powerful body have now sunk to a new nadir, Sri Lanka Cricket are now in a postion to take advantage of their new status as saviours.