Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley's re­cent rift with the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) has left un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the stag­ing of the third Test match against In­dia at the Queen's Park Oval.

The In­di­ans are card­ed to tour the West In­dies from Ju­ly 14 to Au­gust 11 for a se­ries of four Tests with the third sched­uled for T&T from Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 1.

How­ev­er, of­fi­cials at the WICB be­lieve that Dr Row­ley's re­cent calls for the dis­so­lu­tion of the or­gan­is­tion, could sig­nal that his gov­ern­ment will not be sup­port­ing the Test be­ing played in Trinidad.

Fol­low­ing the Cari­com Heads of gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Be­lize three weeks ago, Dr Row­ley not­ed the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of West In­dies crick­et and its lack of prop­er man­age­ment. He said this was dis­cussed by Cari­com Heads and based on these dis­cus­sions, it was felt that there was noth­ing more to gain from talks with the WICB.

WICB of­fi­cials say that this state­ment is cer­tain to be on Dr Row­ley's mind when the lo­cal T&T Crick­et Board at­tempts to hold ne­go­ti­a­tions with the gov­ern­ment to stage the Test.

"Giv­en all that the prime min­is­ter has said, it seems im­pos­si­ble to be­lieve that he will sup­port the match be­ing staged at the Queen's Park Oval. Once they do not sup­port it, there is no way that a Test can be staged in T&T," one of­fi­cial ex­plained.

Last week, pres­i­dent of the WICB, Dave Cameron com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia (BC­CI) and it was agreed that four Test match­es will be played. The WICB want­ed three Test match­es and three ODIs but the BC­CI in­sist­ed on keep­ing it to Test match­es.

The WICB asked for the One-day­ers since they felt this would at­tract big crowds and bring out the fans.

Un­of­fi­cial­ly, the first Test match will be played in St Lu­cia, while the sec­ond is sched­uled for An­tigua the third in Trinidad with the fourth in Ja­maica.

"The WICB felt that some ODIs would have been a great in­vest­ment to at­tract large crowds, but the BC­CI re­ject­ed those dis­cus­sions."

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) Az­im Bas­sarath said that he is con­fi­dent that gov­ern­ment will sup­port the crick­et com­ing to T&T, so that fans can look for­ward to see­ing the In­di­ans play here.

In­dia, with its cadre of young tal­ent led by Vi­rat Kohli and Ro­hit Shar­ma is cur­rent­ly sec­ond on ther ICC rank­ings for Test crick­ert be­hind Aus­tralia.