The future of the tour was put in jeopardy after West Indies captain Brian Lara and vice-captain Carl Hooper were sacked and withdrawn from the team for failing to join the tour over a pay dispute.

Only seven of the 16-strong West Indian squad arrived in South Africa with manager Clive Lloyd yesterday, the other nine players, including Lara and Hooper, flying to London from their previous one-day assignment in Dhaka.Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA), today confirmed the seven members of the tour party who had travelled to Johannesburg were planning to leave the country.

Earlier, Bacher and Lloyd had held a two-hour meeting at Lloyd's Johannesburg hotel, but neither would give details of their talks.The players who refused to travel to South Africa from the WillsInternational Cup Tournament in Dhaka are unhappy about playing fees and other conditions for the five-Test tour, West Indies' first to South Africa since apartheid ended.

Lara and Hooper have subsequently been asked to attend a WICB disciplinary inquiry in Antigua on November 13. There was no immediate response from the players, represented at the Antigua meeting by David Holford, the newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer of the West Indian Player's association and himself a former West Indies all-rounder, and association secretary Roland Holder, a West Indies batsman.

Walsh, who is president of the association, said in a telephone call from his London hotel that the association would issue a statement, probably from its Barbados headquarters this morning.

Neither side will discuss details of fees. But the Barbados Nation newspaper yesterday said the players want to be paid above their tour fee for One-Day Internationals and for a one-week training camp to be held before the November 10 start of theSouth Africa tour, increased meal allowances and some guarantee of security in Johannesburg, where two Pakistani players were mugged while on tour last year.

The Nation quoted unnamed Caribbean sources as saying that players were upset that they would be paid less for the South African tour than their 1996-1997 Australia tour, which also was a five-Test series. The Nation said those who had played in less than 15 Test matches would be paid about $ 16,000 dollars for South Africa, compared to $ 22,000 to $ 25,000 for the Australia tour and senior players $ 50,000 to 60,000 compared to $ 60,000 to $ 70,000 for Australia.

What they said

I can't lie to anybody. The situation is very serious and there has been a move by the players to return home tonight. The players and the WICB have reached an impasse

-- UCBSA managing director Ali Bacher after his telephonic conference with the West Indian Cricket Board (WICB) in Antigua.

It is such an important tour. We hope it comes off becausewe're all looking forward to it. We had a few meetings and I thought everything was fine. We were in Bangkok (in transit) when this happened

-- Windies tour manager Clive Lloyd.

We had a dinner with them (the West Indies team) the night after the final and nothing was mentioned about any financial issues. From what we could gather they were all coming and the first I heard about it was this morning

-- South African captain Hansie Cronje.