The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (T&TCB) has is­sued a cau­tious re­minder to na­tion­al crick­eters to be al­ways mind­ful of the rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rised com­pe­ti­tions, as they seek to max­imise their earn­ing po­ten­tial in the wake of their suc­cess on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, most re­cent­ly at the 2011 Nokia Cham­pi­ons League T20 in In­dia.

The T&T team once again proved to be a huge hit in In­dia with their "nev­er say die" at­ti­tude and the ex­cite­ment they brought to the game, but now there is a con­cern by the T&TCB that the "Red Force" brand could be un­der­mined if the crick­eters do not ex­er­cise due dili­gence.

The warn­ing comes on the heels of in­ter­est shown by teams as far away as Sri Lan­ka in hav­ing sev­er­al T&T stars play in their do­mes­tic T20 com­pe­ti­tions which was en­sure their pro­file is kept at a high lev­el which will go a long way in en­hanc­ing the T&T brand world­wide.

And al­though the T&T Crick­et Board is ful­ly sup­port­ive of the play­ers' right to ply their trade, the na­tion­al crick­eters have been urged to be guid­ed by the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rised com­pe­ti­tions or­gan­ised by pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The lure for crick­eters who are en­ticed to par­tic­i­pate in hasti­ly arranged but lu­cra­tive T20 tour­na­ments was high­light­ed last year when a team com­pris­ing sev­er­al top T&T crick­eters was pro­hib­it­ed from com­pet­ing in a pri­vate tour­na­ment in Flori­da, USA.

The T&TCB has stressed that per­mis­sion must be first re­ceived by the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) be­fore any crick­et tour­na­ment is staged in the re­gion and fail­ure to do so will re­sult in se­vere penal­ties on the ter­ri­to­r­i­al board, the crick­eters and the pro­mot­ers/or­gan­is­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to the WICB's pol­i­cy "Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and Ap­proval for Crick­et in the West In­dies," the min­i­mum penal­ties for stag­ing an unau­tho­rised com­pe­ti­tion range from dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the ter­ri­to­r­i­al board from stag­ing in­ter­na­tion­al match­es for two years to the ban­ning of in­di­vid­ual crick­eters who par­tic­i­pate from of­fi­cial match­es and events for one year.