As the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) moved to clear the air on its re­moval of Tony Gray and Keno Ma­son from the se­nior men’s crick­et team’s se­lec­tion pan­el on Thurs­day, the lat­ter as­sured he holds no grudges af­ter not be­ing reap­point­ed to the po­si­tion of se­lec­tor.

Ma­son, who played for the na­tion­al team be­tween 1994 and 2002, spent a year on the se­lec­tion pan­el watch­ing the first-class team go from last on the stand­ings in the Re­gion­al 4-Day tour­na­ment to sec­ond this past sea­son. The T&TCB an­nounced on Mon­day that Gray and Ma­son would be re­placed by Ra­jen­dra Man­galie, Ma­hadeo Bo­doe and Richard Kel­ly Jr. The on­com­ing na­tion­al coach will al­so be a se­lec­tor while the na­tion­al team cap­tain will be a con­sul­tant. For­mer na­tion­al play­er Bodoo and Man­galie served un­der Gray, who was the chair­man of the com­mit­tee.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Wednes­day, Gray raised sev­er­al ques­tions over the changes query­ing why the board would “dis­man­tle a win­ning for­mu­la.”

How­ev­er, Ma­son was more re­served in say­ing the board must be al­lowed to do its job. He said, “They are in con­trol of who they se­lect and who they want to put as se­lec­tors, so I have no con­trol over that. If I get a call to serve T&T crick­et, I would. I didn’t get the call this year and so be it. I will still do my part in my ca­pac­i­ty as a coach to im­part some knowl­edge on crick­eters and as I said be­fore it’s not an en­ti­tle­ment.”

Ma­son is al­so the coach of Vic­to­ria Unit­ed crick­et club which plays in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion I.

When pressed on whether the fall­out be­tween the se­lec­tion pan­el, for­mer coach Mervyn Dil­lon and West In­dies wick­et-keep­er De­nesh Ramdin in Feb­ru­ary may have led to the dis­man­tling of the se­lec­tion pan­el, Ma­son said he wished not to com­ment on that spe­cif­ic case and whether it had any im­pli­ca­tions on him and Gray be­ing reap­point­ed.

In­stead, Ma­son, who played 42 first-class match­es and 25 List-A games for T&T said the suc­cess of the Red Force team is the most im­por­tant thing. “The peo­ple who run crick­et must have their ideas and where they want to go so, I am very com­fort­able in my skin with the job that I did and by ex­ten­sion the oth­er guys on the com­mit­tee,” Ma­son added.

How­ev­er, there are peo­ple with­in the crick­et­ing fra­ter­ni­ty that are not tak­ing the TTCB’s de­ci­sion as light­ly as Ma­son. For­mer TTCB board mem­ber Col­in Mur­ray called for a full ex­pla­na­tion in­to why a pan­el that has proven to be suc­cess­ful was re­moved. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Thurs­day, “You felt that T&T crick­et was on the up and then all of a sud­den this thing hap­pens and there is no ex­pla­na­tion.” Mur­ray says even if the Ramdin is­sue was at the cen­tre of the T&TCB’s de­ci­sion, the board should be open enough to say it.

A day af­ter an­nounc­ing the change in se­lec­tors, the TTCB is­sued a state­ment yes­ter­day say­ing “a fu­ture role in the na­tion­al crick­et set-up has not been ruled out for the lanky ex-fast bowler [Gray] and al­so Keno Ma­son, who was al­so not re­tained on the pan­el.”

A na­tion­al coach for the se­nior men’s team is ex­pect­ed to be named by the first week of De­cem­ber with 18 con­tenders to be in­ter­viewed for the top po­si­tion. For­mer coach Dil­lon is among those who will be in­ter­viewed by a TTCB ap­point­ed com­mit­tee head­ed by Dr. Allen Sam­my and com­pris­ing Ann Browne-John, Ku­mar Ram­pat, An­tho­ny Creed and Amar Sama­roo.