The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (T&TCB) is urg­ing per­sons in­ter­est­ed in pro­mot­ing and or­gan­is­ing crick­et com­pe­ti­tions in­volv­ing na­tion­al crick­eters to be re­spect­ful of the rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties as a fail­ure to se­cure per­mis­sion from the law­ful crick­et au­thor­i­ties could lead to se­ri­ous penal­ties.

And the new­ly re-elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive of the T&TCB, led by Az­im Bas­sarath has again em­pha­sized that the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the top crick­eters in unau­tho­rised com­pe­ti­tions, as they seek to max­imise their earn­ing po­ten­tial will at­tract care­ful scruti­ny. In a me­dia re­lease on Fri­day, the T&TCB leader said they are not seek­ing to re­strict the crick­eters from ply­ing their trade but will work as­sid­u­ous­ly to en­sure that crick­et pro­mot­ers/or­gan­is­ers and play­ers ad­here to the es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.

"We are pleased that the crick­eters are be­ing af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn some re­mu­ner­a­tion for their skills but we want to make it abun­dant­ly clear that it will not be at the ex­pense of ful­fill­ing cer­tain oblig­a­tions specif­i­cal­ly re­lat­ing to get­ting the ap­proval of the T&TCB to stage and par­tic­i­pate in any crick­et com­pe­ti­tion staged lo­cal­ly," said Bas­sarath.

The T&TCB mes­sage comes on the heels of a slew of T20 com­pe­ti­tions be­ing planned which is ex­pect­ed to at­tract top lo­cal play­ers who have made a name for them­selves in the short­est form of the game as ev­i­denced by their suc­cess on the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stage.In Sep­tem­ber-Oc­to­ber last, 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 in the Cham­pi­ons League T20 and the T&TCB is con­cerned that the "Red Force" brand could be un­der­mined if the crick­eters are se­duced in­to play­ing in au­tho­rized com­pe­ti­tions.

The T&TCB warn­ing comes on the heels of in­ter­est shown by in­ter­na­tion­al teams as far away as Sri Lan­ka in hav­ing sev­er­al T&T stars play in their do­mes­tic T20 com­pe­ti­tions which will en­sure their pro­file is kept at a high lev­el and 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 strong­ly ad­vised to be guid­ed by the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in unau­tho­rised com­pe­ti­tions or­gan­ised by pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions.

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.

Al­so the pro­mot­ers and/or or­gan­is­ers of such un­ap­proved com­pe­ti­tions could be dis­qual­i­fied from host­ing sim­i­lar events for a pe­ri­od of up to three years.The WICB doc­u­ment, to which all ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards in the re­gion ad­here to, al­so lists the dif­fer­ent types of com­pe­ti­tions that have been pre-ap­proved by the re­gion­al body and al­so out­lines the pro­ce­dure for sub­mit­ting re­quests for ap­proval for crick­et tour­na­ments.

It states that an ap­pli­ca­tion for ap­proval must be made in writ­ing to the WICB not less than 30 days in ad­vance of the sched­uled start of the match or event. The WICB, how­ev­er, makes pro­vi­sion for ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, to con­sid­er ap­pli­ca­tions re­ceived in less than the stip­u­lat­ed time.Dr Allen Sam­my, ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the T&T Crick­et Board and a Di­rec­tor of the WICB has said that crick­eters who do not ob­serve the es­tab­lished rules and reg­u­la­tions risk run­ning afoul of the WICB and the ICC, the world gov­ern­ing body for crick­et.

He said the T&T Crick­et Board is re­spon­si­ble for all do­mes­tic crick­et and the ter­ri­to­r­i­al board must en­sure that ap­proval is sought from the West In­dies Crick­et Board for any com­pe­ti­tion played in its ju­ris­dic­tion.