Lal­man Kow­lessar, 80, a stal­wart of lo­cal crick­et passed away sud­den­ly on Thurs­day night and trib­utes have been com­ing in for his self­less ser­vice to the game for many decades.

The for­mer teacher at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege in Ch­agua­nas was in­stru­men­tal in the de­vel­op­ment of count­less crick­eters, es­pe­cial­ly in the Cen­tral Zone.

The En­ter­prise Vil­lage res­i­dent served as the sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board, and Board Mem­ber, who was al­so the chair­man of the Cen­tral Zone for many years.

Lead­ing the trib­utes was the pres­i­dent of the TTCB Az­im Bas­sarath who on be­half of the na­tion­al crick­et or­gan­i­sa­tion ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Kow­lessar’s fam­i­ly.

The af­fa­ble but forth­right of­fi­cial was al­so a promi­nent mem­ber of the um­pires’ fra­ter­ni­ty and was re­mem­bered for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion through the years by the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s for­mer pres­i­dent Paras­ram Singh, now chair­man of the North East Zone.

Al­so mourn­ing his loss was Cen­tral Zone chair­man An­der­son Ram­dath who said he was sad­dened to learn of Kow­lessar’s pass­ing. He cred­it­ed him for be­ing a foun­da­tion mem­ber of the zone whose ad­vice and sup­port was in­valu­able.

Among those who al­so felt a sense of loss was Jus­tice Prakash Moo­sai, a for­mer na­tion­al bats­man who hailed Kow­lessar as an out­stand­ing ser­vant of the game no­tably com­bin­ing sports and aca­d­e­mics at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege.

Chair­men of the TTCB’s East Zone, and South East Zone, Joseph Sam Phillip and Kelvin Mo­hammed re­spec­tive­ly both memo­ri­alised him as a pil­lar of the game who will be sore­ly missed.

Vice pres­i­dent of the Women’s Crick­et Fed­er­a­tion Ann Browne-John said she spoke of the late crick­et of­fi­cial’s son Kell­man and was told that his fa­ther passed away peace­ful­ly in his sleep.

And the chair­man of the To­ba­go Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion Ker­win John al­so joined in ex­tend­ing his deep­est sym­pa­thies on Kow­lessar’s pass­ing.

Bas­sarath said Kow­lessar was the longest-serv­ing mem­ber of the TTCB for some two decades. He served as vice pres­i­dent for a decade and be­fore that he was a Board mem­ber.

Kow­lessar, a na­tive of En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, was a for­mer train­er of um­pires for many, many years and he had a deep pas­sion for youth crick­eters and bud­ding crick­eters.

Bas­sarath said: "Lal­man was so pas­sion­ate about youth crick­eters and crick­et that for 25 con­sec­u­tive years he trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos to watch the Sir Gary Sobers youth tour­na­ment and al­so the length and breadth of T&T and oth­er coun­tries in the Caribbean look­ing to un­earth new tal­ent for the sport. The sports has lost a great ser­vant. May his soul Rest in Peace."