Lara and Hooper, en route from Dhaka where they had played in the Wills International Cup, met the other seven - Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Jimmy Adams, Junior Murray, Darren Ganga, Dinanath Ramnarine and Franklyn Rose - in London where all were expected to fly on to Johannesburg yesterday for the beginning of the South African tour.

In a hotel at Heathrow Airport on Monday they had a meeting where they demanded that a number of conditions were met before they joined the tour, including increased meal allowances, higher pay for a training camp at the start of the tour, and assurances of increased security the latter raised following the alleged mugging of two Pakistani players on tour in Johannesburg earlier this year.

An invitation was made for WICB officials to travel to London to discuss the concerns. In response, the WICB summoned Lara and Hooper to attend a meeting of the Board at St Johns, Antigua yesterday. They declined to attend, and the Board met for six hours on Tuesday with David Holford, chief executive of the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and its secretary Roland Holder.

The outcome of the meeting was that Lara and Hooper were dismissed as captain and vice-captain of the West Indies, and ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing of the WICB on Friday the 13th of November. Adams, Ambrose and Walsh have been fined 10 per cent of their tour fee, while Ganga, Murray, Ramnarine and Rose have been fined 5 per cent. All players except Lara and Hooper have been ordered to travel to Johannesburg as soon as possible.

The remaining seven members of the South African touring party have arrived in Johannesburg, flying into the city yesterday with team manager Clive Lloyd and coach Malcolm Marshall. Lloyd refused to speculate to reporters on the future of the tour. At the very least, if the seven fined players fly to South Africa to join the team, replacements will have to be found for Lara and Hooper both in the squad and as captain and vice-captain. It is likely that players will be drawn from the West Indies A touring team which flies into Bangladesh today.

The WICB will be convening a meeting as soon as possible to select a new captain and vice-captain and two replacement players for Lara and Hooper. It is not known at this stage what further action, if any, the West Indies Players Association will take.

Meanwhile, the South African team also flew into Johannesburg airport yesterday, the Wills International Cup in tow.