The un­avail­abil­i­ty of De­nesh Ramdin for se­lec­tion for near­ly all of the 2014�2015 re­gion­al crick­et sea­son was the de­cid­ing fac­tor in the de­ci­sion to ap­point a new na­tion­al team cap­tain.And Ramdin, the West In­dies Test team cap­tain who was among the play­ers who re­cent­ly pulled out of a tour of In­dia, was told this at a meet­ing on Mon­day with of­fi­cials of the T&T Crick­et Board.In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the T&TCB said that the sched­uled 5 pm meet­ing was called with Ramdin and Dar­ren Bra­vo, a se­nior na­tion­al and Test bats­man who failed to show and did not in­form the T&TCB of his non-at­ten­dance.

Top of the agen­da was the play­ers' con­tin­ued role and in­volve­ment with the Red Force, fol­low­ing the de­ba­cle in In­dia which has re­sult­ed in a claim for US$42 mil­lion from the Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia.The T&TCB team was led by its pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath and in­clud­ed Su­ruj, Ra­goonath, T&TCB chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer; board gen­er­al-sec­re­tary Ar­joon Ram­lal, trea­sur­er Sukesh Ma­ni­am, third vice-pres­i­dent Patrick Ram­per­sad, and na­tion­al team coach Gus Lo­gie.

Ramdin, dressed in T-shirt and short pants ar­rived at 5.55 pm for the meet­ing and was met by Ra­goonath and the T&TCB sought to get an idea of Ramdin's will­ing­ness to rep­re­sent his coun­try fol­low­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the In­di­an tour and the on­go­ing im­passe with the WI Crick­et Board (WICB).At the meet­ing Ramdin stat­ed his com­mit­ment to T&T and his will­ing­ness to rep­re­sent T&T once avail­able and T&TCB pres­i­dent Bas­sarath in­formed him that the na­tion­al se­lec­tors have made a rec­om­men­da­tion for a new cap­tain and vice-cap­tain.

Rea­son put for­ward was that Ramdin was not ex­pect­ed to be avail­able to rep­re­sent T&T in the up­com­ing sea­son be­cause of the tight WI in­ter­na­tion­al sched­ule as he is cur­rent Test team cap­tain.

Ramdin was ex­pect­ed to be lead­ing the WI team in In­dia at this time, fol­lowed by the tour of SA and then the World Cup in Aus­tralia and New Zealand. This sched­ule meant that WI play­ers will be re­turn­ing to the re­gion in late March 2015 by which time the re­gion­al sea­son would be at an end.

The re­gion­al sea­son runs from No­vem­ber 14, 2014 through March 23, 2015. Both Ramdin and Dwayne Bra­vo, the re­gion­al and na­tion­al ODI cap­tain were ex­pect­ed to be very in­volved in these se­ries hence mak­ing them un­avail­able to rep­re­sent T&T. Lead­ing all-rounder Rayad Em­rit cap­tained T&T last year with much suc­cess dur­ing Ramdin's ab­sence from the team.