Clarke Road Crick­et Club pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­habir is not hap­py with the ex­pla­na­tion and re­sponse by the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) in grant­i­ng per­mis­sion to Cen­tral Sports Crick­et Club to reg­is­ter a ‘fifth’ over­seas play­er for the 2024 sea­son.

As re­port­ed on Mon­day, Clarke Road wrote a for­mal protest to the TTCB cit­ing that Cen­tral Sports reg­is­tered and played a fifth over­seas play­er when Bar­ba­di­an open­er Shayne Mose­ly played against Clarke Road in their Round Five meet­ing at Fe­lic­i­ty on March 9 and 10.

How­ev­er, Cen­tral Sports pres­i­dent Richard Ramkissoon ex­pressed to Guardian Me­dia Sport that they got per­mis­sion from the TTCB and added that Mose­ly was a re­place­ment for Guyanese Ak­shaya Per­saud who was called up by Guyana Harpy Ea­gles for the on­go­ing Crick­et West In­dies Cham­pi­onship.

How­ev­er, Ma­habir said the club’s lawyers are look­ing in­to the mat­ter. “A max­i­mum of four doesn’t give you any right to five un­der any con­di­tion. It doesn’t have any con­di­tion­al­i­ty for more than four,” Ma­habir told Guardian Sport.

Ma­habir added the mat­ter would be pur­sued. “The re­place­ment they talk about is a con­cussed play­er or a re­place­ment dur­ing a game. If a play­er starts a match and is called for na­tion­al, or West In­dies du­ty. That’s how I in­ter­pret it, that’s how the club sees it.”

Ar­ti­cle 5(A)ii of the reg­u­la­tions states: “Clubs will be al­lowed to reg­is­ter a max­i­mum of four (4) reg­is­tered play­ers. On­ly three (3) can play per club, per round with a max­i­mum of two (2) on ei­ther team (first team or re­serve).

Cen­tral Sports cur­rent­ly hold a 22-point lead in the stand­ings and sev­en points from this week­end’s match away to Pow­er­gen will guar­an­tee them the ti­tle.