There has been a lot of talk about the struc­ture of crick­et in T&T and the West In­dies. Whilst we look for a win­ning for­mu­la, a lot has come out in terms of what is right and what is wrong. To­day crick­et writer Vin­ode Mam­chan be­gins a five-part se­ries look­ing at the pos­si­ble ways to im­prove the qual­i­ty of crick­et and crick­eters.

For­mer T&T play­er Asif Jan who now lives and plays crick­et in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia, thinks that the way for­ward for crick­et is to de­vel­op the crick­eter holis­ti­cal­ly.

He is call­ing on the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) to dis­man­tle the cur­rent struc­ture of do­mes­tic crick­et and make a bold move, by not play­ing crick­et on Sun­days.

Jan, who was born in Ma­yaro, played his do­mes­tic crick­et for Queen's Park Crick­et Club, be­fore mi­grat­ing to Aus­tralia, where he works and plays crick­et on Sat­ur­days.

He told the T&T Guardian: "Club Crick­et should al­ways be fam­i­ly fo­cused, work friend­ly and not pro­fes­sion­alised as pro­posed by lots in T&T. I think that club crick­et in Trinidad should be played over two Sat­ur­days.

"It's like that here at all lev­els up to state lev­el where it's four days. Look at the set­up here in Aus­tralia and watch the qual­i­ty of men and play­ers it pro­duces.

"We are pro­duc­ing fam­i­ly men down here and it is work­ing won­der­ful­ly well. They are role mod­els for their own kids and they get time to spend with the fam­i­ly which helps them, to per­form when they are not around.

"The knock on re­sults are im­mense, it's a proven for­mat here and it's a holis­tic ap­proach for every­one. With­out a strong fam­i­ly and a se­cure job you're noth­ing," added the all rounder.

"The T&T Crick­et Board must make a move to say there will be no club crick­et on Sun­days. Al­low the crick­eters to go to church with their fam­i­lies, or go watch a movie. It al­so keeps them fresh and you get bet­ter re­sults from them on the field of play."

When told that miss­ing crick­et on Sun­days would ex­tend the league way in­to the rainy sea­son Jan said: "A bet­ter do­mes­tic struc­ture will see you get in more crick­et in a short­er time.

"Look at what is hap­pen­ing now, the TTCB plays the Sun­day league on Sun­days. Give this up and play the Sun­day League in a block over two weeks. This would free up the time for the play­ers to get a rest on Sun­days."

Jan said that crick­eters must for­get try­ing to make a liv­ing from a club. He said they need to have prop­er jobs, so that they have some­thing to fall back on.

"The club crick­et ap­proach needs to be sus­tain­able, pay­ing play­ers to play lo­cal club crick­et isn't the cor­rect thing. I say this, mean­ing that I have no prob­lems with men get­ting pay to play but they need to get a re­al job be­cause a time can come where crick­et can­not sus­tain you.

"Some­times you are dealt a wicked hand and it can end your ca­reer. Look in Aus­tralia you have David Hussey mak­ing his de­but at the age of 31 but in Trinidad Im­ran Jan gets dropped at 28, it's be­yond me."

"The T&T Crick­et Board must make a move to say there will be no club crick­et on Sun­days. Al­low the crick­eters to go to church with their fam­i­lies, or go watch a movie. It al­so keeps them fresh and you get bet­ter re­sults from them on the field of play" –Asif Jan