It is laughable that David Hyatali would seek to portray a legitimate legal challenge mounted by the T&T Cricket Board as the greatest sin perpetrated on the nation in his letter of April 13, headed "Ridiculous blunders by local cricket board." Hyatali, a member of the defeated Friends of Cricket clique which was thrown out of office two years ago after it disappointed the entire cricket community, clearly suffers from a cricket tabanca and a bad case of amnesia, reflecting perhaps the onset of a more serious condition.
He would do well to remember that the most divisive words uttered by any cricket official in the West lndies was by ousted chief executive officer Forbes Persaud when he fanned the flames of regional insularity by declaring that T&T should go it alone by breaking away from the WICB.
That treasonous declaration and the maladministration of the board, together with questionable spending of the board's funds, were mainly responsible for the rejection of the Friends of Cricket whose poster boy was Deryck Murray. With elections later this year it is clearly out to score cheap points and is using the recent issue, now dead and buried, to paint the T&T Cricket Board in the worst possible light. How cowardly!
Instead the Friends of Cricket should have rallied behind the national cricketers who were only exercising their right as citizens of T&T to seek redress according to law after it was unanimously agreed that the rules governing the semifinal were wholly inadequate.
The T&T team played exceptionally well during the season after being afforded the best opportunities by the Cricket Board, which it appears made a decision that all avenues should be used to get the message across in a forceful way to effect change. Judging from the reports in the newspaper, the board has been working closely with the players, more than at any other time in the history of local cricket and to attack the hard working cricket administration is a stab in the back that is both foolhardy and myopic. Hyatali would be well advised to put aside his politicking and stop attacking the cricketers on whose urging it was reported that the board acted in the best interest of local cricket.
Solomon John
Diego Martin