Bacher will deliver the message from the South African President at a meeting with rebel West Indian players who have refused to join the tour because of a pay dispute.

West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) sacked captain Brian Lara and his deputy Carl Hooper on Wednesday and the row escalated when seven other players refused to join the tour.

The nine rebels, who had flown to London after a one-day tournament in Bangladesh, were joined on today by the other seven West Indies' players who arrived with Bacher and Lloyd from Johannesburg.

Bacher, the managing director of United Cricket Board of South Africa, and Lloyd appeared optimistic the tour, due to start next Tuesday, would go ahead. "We would love it to go ahead because of its importance," Lloydsaid.

Lloyd and Bacher are awaiting West Indies' A tour manager Joel Garner to arrive before planning talks with the players. Garner, a member of the WICB, is to manage the `A' team in Bangladesh.

Lara believed the crisis-hit tour of South Africa would take place.

"I think on the 26th of November there is going to be a Test match," he said. "I hope in the near future we can rectify things. The main thing is that the tour is on, everyone wants it on."

"Players in London and in South Africa are in solidarity and are standing firm on the issues," the West Indian Players' Association said in its first public comment yesterday. Secretary Roland Holder said the issue "is not about fees" but about the rights of players and the need for the board to recognise the association as a bargaining agent for the players.

Holder said the board would not accept that Lara and Hooper had traveled to London as representatives of their union. That view was shared by the national union of government and federated workersin Trinidad and Tobago, which charged that "Brian Lara, as a union representative, was sacked for going to London to negotiate terms and conditions of employment for his members."

PORT OF SPAIN: Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell will attempt to mediate the dispute between West Indian cricketers and cricketing authorities.