Vin­ode Mam­chan

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) Az­im Bas­sarath said yes­ter­day that he will not be con­test­ing the pres­i­den­cy of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) against the in­cum­bent Dave Cameron.

Cameron has been un­der at­tack re­cent­ly for his role in the WICB's han­dling of the re­cent abort­ed tour of In­dia which left the Board with a debt of US $41.9 mil­lion, and there is a lot of spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing his con­tin­ued stay at the head of the em­bat­tled Board.

Even St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­za­les has called for his head.

How­ev­er, a de­fi­ant Bas­sarath said yes­ter­day that he was not in­ter­est­ed in the po­si­tion. Bas­sarath said his T&T Board will con­vene an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing to­day and will for­malise a po­si­tion on the WICB's elec­tion. "The di­rec­tors will all get their chance to voice an opin­ion and at the end of it, we will come up with a po­si­tion and as usu­al we will stick to what­ev­er that de­ci­sion is."

Bas­sarath is cur­rent­ly a di­rec­tor on the WICB and re­cent­ly for­mer West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA) pres­i­dent and the man Bas­sarath de­feat­ed at the TTCB's last elec­tion Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine tweet­ed that Bas­sarath will be chal­leng­ing Cameron for the post. The oth­er di­rec­tor is Bal­dath Ma­habir who is al­so the chair­man of the WICB's mar­ket­ing com­mit­tee.

How­ev­er Bas­sarath de­scribed Ram­nar­ine's tweet as rub­bish. "That is ut­ter rub­bish. I don't know where this man gets his in­for­ma­tion but again he is wrong. I am not con­test­ing the pres­i­den­cy of the WICB."

Nom­i­na­tions for the post end on Sat­ur­day and the elec­tions will be held on March 7 at the WICB's an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing.

To­day's TTCB meet­ing will place em­pha­sis on neg­a­tive re­ports which the ex­ec­u­tive got from man­agers and coach­es of teams that took part in the re­cent Nagi­co Su­per50 se­ries in T&T. Bas­sarath said he re­ceived a num­ber of neg­a­tive re­ports from man­agers and coach­es about the state of the pitch­es at the Queen's Park Oval. "They have six pitch­es at the Oval yet they on­ly used two for the tour­na­ment. This is not ac­cept­able and when you look at it, the pitch­es were not good for lim­it­ed overs crick­et.

"You can­not host a tour­na­ment here and from day one the ball is turn­ing square. This is some­thing that we have to look at se­ri­ous­ly be­cause we stand a chance of los­ing the right to host the tour­na­ment in the fu­ture." Un­der the cur­rent arrange­ment with the WICB, the TTCB has one more year to host the Nagi­co Su­per50 se­ries. They have al­ready host­ed the tour­na­ment for the years 2013 and 2014.