Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T Red Force will not be en­gag­ing any in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers for the next West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League (PCL) sea­son.

The last meet­ing of the WICB saw the di­rec­tors tak­ing an in-depth look at the first PCL sea­son and mak­ing a strong rec­om­men­da­tion that each of the six ter­ri­to­ries must in­clude two for­eign play­ers for the next sea­son. 'For­eign', in this case, means two Caribbean play­ers born out­side the re­spec­tive ter­ri­to­ries for which they would be al­lowed to play.

They al­so made a rec­om­men­da­tion that one in­ter­na­tion­al play­er can come in and play as well for each ter­ri­to­ry.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), Az­im Bas­sarath said yes­ter­day said this coun­try will abide by the two re­gion­al play­ers rule, but will not be seek­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al play­er.

The T&T Red Force won the Nagi­co Su­per50 ti­tle but played dis­mal­ly in the re­gion­al four-day tour­na­ment, fin­ish­ing fifth among the six fran­chis­es. This, how­ev­er will not lead to the TTCB seek­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al play­er. "We are not en­ter­tain­ing the idea of bring­ing in an in­ter­na­tion­al play­er be­cause it would be cost­ly and we are not in a po­si­tion to spend that mon­ey right now.

"We will go for two play­ers from out­side T&T though, as we did in the first sea­son, we went for one– Ramnaresh Sar­wan. Things did not work out as planned but we will go for two re­gion­al play­ers for the next sea­son."

T&T Red Force and even­tu­al win­ners Guyana Jaguars were the on­ly two fran­chis­es that went for play­ers from out­side their coun­try. Bar­ba­di­an Floyd Reifer was picked up by Guyana Jaguars.

Look­ing at the team struc­ture for the new sea­son, each fran­chise will con­tract a min­i­mum of 15 play­ers, as fol­lows: Ten play­ers pre-se­lect­ed from the home ter­ri­to­ry; and five play­ers draft­ed from the pool a min­i­mum of two must be from out­side the home ter­ri­to­ry. Each fran­chise can have one in­ter­na­tion­al play­er at its own cost.

The fran­chise must no­ti­fy the WICB of the play­ers who have been pre-se­lect­ed by Fri­day May 1, which is ten days be­fore the draft on May 12. The fran­chis­es will then have to sub­mit to the WICB el­i­gi­ble play­ers to be in­clud­ed in the pool by May 1.

The draft will be con­duct­ed over five rounds and each fran­chise must pick a play­er in each round. Giv­en the fact that the T&T Red Force fin­ished fifth this year, they will be the sec­ond team al­lowed a pick in the draft. The Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes, who fin­ished bot­tom of the ta­ble, will have the first pick.