Vin­ode Mam­chan

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) is cur­rent­ly in talks with ma­jor stake­hold­ers to bring fran­chise crick­et to T&T, just as is done in the very lu­cra­tive In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL). A source close to the sit­u­a­tion told the Trinidad Guardian that the TTCB and Queen's Park Crick­et Club are cur­rent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing the host­ing rights for the tour­na­ment.

Four teams will be in­volved in the T20 tour­na­ment that will take place in June at the Queen's Park Oval. The teams will play a round robin for­mat and the win­ner will be de­ter­mined af­ter three days of com­pe­ti­tion. The four teams tak­ing part are West In­dies 'A', In­dia 'A', Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­nior team and Trinidad and To­ba­go 'A' team.

Ac­cord­ing to the source: "Talks are on­go­ing for the tour­na­ment and so far we are pro­gress­ing well. We are look­ing to go the IPL way, where we will have fran­chise crick­et. The four teams will be owned by dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies and they will be able to bid for play­ers in the first case. De­tails of the prize mon­ey and per­cent­ages to be paid to the own­ers who will be the TTCB and QPCC are still to be worked out."

The IPL busi­ness plan al­lows the tour­na­ment or­gan­is­ers to gain funds through a par­tic­i­pa­tion fee, tour­na­ment ti­tle spon­sor­ship, ad­ver­tis­ing, 20 per cent of the gate re­ceipts, as well as trans­fer fees. The re­spec­tive own­ers of the teams make their mon­ey through spon­sor­ship, ad­ver­tis­ing and 80 per cent gate re­ceipts.

The tour­na­ment will al­so be used to as­sist the T&T se­nior crick­et team as they be­gin prepa­ra­tion for the T20 Cham­pi­ons League tour­na­ment in In­dia in Oc­to­ber lat­er this year. An of­fi­cial of the TTCB al­so re­vealed that the board was cur­rent­ly seek­ing ways to im­ple­ment a trans­fer fee for do­mes­tic play­ers in the do­mes­tic crick­et league.

"We are mov­ing along nice­ly as far as get­ting a trans­fer fee in place to as­sist clubs with play­er hop­ping. The clubs in­vest a lot to nur­ture and de­vel­op play­ers and what we are see­ing now is ram­pant club hop­ping. "We would have to change the con­sti­tu­tion of the T&T Crick­et Board in or­der to make this a re­al­i­ty and as such we have ac­quired the ser­vices of a lawyer to guide us along the process."

T&T's do­mes­tic crick­et is cur­rent­ly se­mi-pro and there are al­so moves in place to make it ful­ly pro­fes­sion­al and this at­tempt at the fran­chise crick­et could be used as a cat­a­lyst in achiev­ing this process.