Vin­ode Mam­chan

In the af­ter­math of los­ing the bid to host the re­gion­al T20 crick­et se­ries, the T&T Crick­et Board has is­sued a call to gov­ern­ment to com­plete the con­tro­ver­sial Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba, so they can have a venue to use free of charge. T&T's bid to host the se­ries was re­ject­ed by the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) which ad­vanced as one of its rea­sons for the de­ci­sion the ex­or­bi­tant cost for the rental of the Queen's Park Oval, which was cit­ed as the main T&T venue. The WIBC ac­cept­ed the bids of An­tigua and Bar­ba­dos which not­ed they were get­ting the use of the Sir Vi­vian Richards Ground (An­tigua) and Kens­ing­ton Oval (Bar­ba­dos) free of charge, as they be­longed to the gov­ern­ment of An­tigua and Bar­ba­dos re­spec­tive­ly.

Pres­i­dent of the TTCB, Az­im Bas­sarath said the re­jec­tion un­der­scored the need for gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue to work close­ly with the lo­cal board to help com­pete in the fierce in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment. Bas­sarath said it was left to the pow­ers that be to en­sure all is put in place for the open­ing and use of the Brain Lara Sta­di­um. "We are now call­ing for the swift ac­tion of gov­ern­ment to un­der­take all that is nec­es­sary to con­clude all works re­lat­ed to the sta­di­um, mean­ing au­dit and re­port from the struc­tur­al en­gi­neer with re­spect to the struc­ture of the sta­di­um so that the crick­et­ing fra­ter­ni­ty can have ac­cess to the fa­cil­i­ties."

Bas­sarath said his board had ac­cept­ed the de­ci­sion of the WICB. "The board has ac­cept­ed the ex­pla­na­tion of West In­dies Crick­et Board. We have no is­sue with the award to Bar­ba­dos and An­tigua, in­deed we sup­port their ini­tia­tive in mak­ing a suc­cess of the tour­na­ment. "Trinidad and To­ba­go's tourism mar­ket is now emerg­ing and has not yet at­tained the ma­tu­ri­ty of Bar­ba­dos and An­tigua. We are aware of the strength of their mar­ket­ing strengths and will cer­tain­ly work with our gov­ern­ment to be com­pet­i­tive at the next op­por­tu­ni­ty."