Less than 24 hours af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley claimed that some­one im­per­son­at­ed some­one from the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer’s of­fice and com­mu­ni­cat­ed false in­for­ma­tion to the or­gan­is­ers of the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) and two days af­ter his ex­pla­na­tion on the de­ci­sion for T&T to host the tour­na­ment, part­ly be­ing an eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion as de­trac­tors took is­sue with play­ers be­ing al­lowed to en­ter the coun­try, comes an­oth­er turn.

T&T, host of the eighth edi­tion of the crick­et tour­na­ment, is fac­ing an­oth­er stum­bling block as strict pro­to­cols may see some of the in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers de­cid­ing against par­tic­i­pat­ing in the an­nu­al T20 com­pe­ti­tion which is dubbed — the Biggest Par­ty In Sports.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed on Tues­day that due to the strict health pro­to­cols called for by Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram, some of the fran­chise own­ers are up in arms, as it may see their for­eign tal­ent back­ing out.

It is un­der­stood that CPL of­fi­cials are caught in the mid­dle try­ing to please the gov­ern­ment as well as the team own­ers. Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the CPL has de­cid­ed to of­fer T&T the en­tire tour­na­ment and last week, Min­is­ter of Sports Sham­fa Cud­joe an­nounced that the gov­ern­ment had agreed and was will­ing to in­vest US$1M in­to the project.

She out­lined that the for­eign play­ers will have to un­der­go a pe­ri­od of quar­an­tine be­fore be­ing al­lowed to take part in the tour­na­ment. They are to pro­vide a COVID-19 test which must show neg­a­tive be­fore leav­ing their coun­try of ori­gin. Then they must un­der­go an­oth­er test on ar­rival at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Sev­en days af­ter they will have to un­der­go an­oth­er test and once they stay neg­a­tive, they will then fin­ish their self-iso­la­tion and be al­lowed to join up in small groups to train. Af­ter an­oth­er sev­en days, they will have to un­der­go an­oth­er test and then they can be cleared to join their en­tire team for the tour­na­ment.

It means that the play­ers will have to be in Trinidad by Au­gust 1 to en­sure that they un­der­go their quar­an­tine pe­ri­od be­fore prepa­ra­tions start for the tour­na­ment, which is card­ed for Au­gust 18. The tour­na­ment ends on Sep­tem­ber 10, which means that the play­ers will have to be in Trinidad for a month and a half. This may be too long for some.

Al­so, some team own­ers who want to come in are not hap­py with the fact that they will have to un­der­go a 14-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od. It is un­der­stood that they can't stay too long away from their busi­ness­es and as such, they are not hap­py with the length of quar­an­tine. Talks are on­go­ing be­tween the CPL and Min­istry of Health and a de­ci­sion has to come soon as the time is run­ning out.

The St Kitts gov­ern­ment is wait­ing in the slips to snap up the chance, should T&T pass it up. St Kitts has just the one venue at Warn­er Park, while T&T pos­sess two World-Class fa­cil­i­ties in the icon­ic Queen's Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain and the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do.

Mean­while, dur­ing Mon­day's Min­istry of Health vir­tu­al news press con­fer­ence and with­out re­veal­ing what the name of the per­son, Dr Row­ley chid­ed the mis­chief that was at­tempt­ed to de­railed the tour­na­ment and the arrange­ment be­tween the two par­ties.

“There are peo­ple in this coun­try who are pre­pared to un­der­mine the na­tion­al ef­forts so that the coun­try will fail so that they may suc­ceed in their am­bi­tions and their agen­da,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing the de­trac­tors who al­so took is­sue with CPL play­ers be­ing al­lowed to come in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr Row­ley ex­plained that it was part­ly an eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion to ben­e­fit the coun­try.