Vin­ode Mam­chan

The T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) re­cent­ly took Rayad Em­rit and Evin Lewis off their pay­roll be­cause they jet­ted off to par­tic­i­pate in the Bangladesh Pre­mier League (BPL)T20 tour­na­ment.

In­for­ma­tion com­ing from the TTCB was that they two play­ers broke the terms of their con­tract with the Red Force fran­chise by sign­ing with their re­spec­tive T20 teams in Bangladesh be­fore seek­ing No Ob­jec­tion Cer­tifi­cates (NOC) from the TTCB.

The play­ers in their de­fence said that they had got­ten the go ahead ver­bal­ly from a se­nior em­ploy­ee of the TTCB. The play­ers went ahead think­ing that they got the bless­ings from the board and that get­ting the NOC would have just been a for­mal­i­ty.

Well it did not play out as both their names were struck off the re­tain­er list. While I agree that the play­ers should have got­ten writ­ten ap­proval from the TTCB be­fore sign­ing off with their over­seas clubs, I think strik­ing them off the re­tain­er list is too harsh a penal­ty for a first in­frac­tion. If what the play­ers are say­ing is true con­cern­ing the se­nior TTCB em­ploy­ee then the per­son in ques­tion should stand up and come for­ward and ei­ther ac­knowl­edge or de­ny what the play­ers have said is true or not. This could lead to some kind of mit­i­ga­tion be­cause the ex­ec­u­tive of the TTCB and then fac­tor this in­to the equa­tion.

I am still not say­ing that the play­ers are right, but we need to look at the mat­ter in de­tail. The board, while they would like the play­ers to stay home and rep­re­sent the fran­chise, they al­so have to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that the play­ers have a shelf life and would like to fi­nan­cial­ly max­imise their play­ing time.

The TTCB in my hum­ble view could have a ro­ta­tion sys­tem in terms of al­low­ing play­ers to go out­side to trade their skills. If this is done, then at all times they would have a pret­ty sol­id squad rep­re­sent­ing the fran­chise. I have no prob­lems with the play­ers not be­ing paid for the pe­ri­od they are on 'for­eign' as­sign­ments, but to take away the con­tract for an en­tire year is not the best so­lu­tion.

At the cur­rent Nagi­co Su­per50 se­ries I have no­ticed the ap­proach of Em­rit and Lewis and they have giv­en 100 per­cent com­mit­ment to the Red Force cause. Both play­ers have shown growth in terms of their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and it is clear for every­one to see that the ex­pe­ri­ence in Bangladesh has led to an im­prove­ment in their crick­et.

When this hap­pens, who ben­e­fits? Not on­ly the play­ers but the fran­chise be­cause both are now stand­out per­form­ers on a team that is miss­ing so many se­nior play­ers. It is not too late for the TTCB to call both gen­tle­men in and have mean­ing­ful di­a­logue as far as the con­tracts are con­cerned. We in a day when re­la­tions with ad­min­is­tra­tors and play­ers are at an all time low and some peo­ple out there will con­tin­ue to put a wedge be­tween both par­ties for self­ish gains.

The TTCB must act now and put this mat­ter to an am­i­ca­ble rest, so that the fires which keep burn­ing can be doused.

On an­oth­er mat­ter, I think the so­cial out­cry from cer­tain play­ers not re­ceiv­ing their meal al­lowance on time was un­called for and in poor taste. Play­ers need to un­der­stand that if they go pub­lic with sit­u­a­tions that they are un­hap­py about can lead to no good.

If I am up­set with a sit­u­a­tion at Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed and I go un­to so­cial me­dia to deal with it, I don't think that my em­ploy­ers would take kind­ly to that and some kind of dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sure would come in­to ef­fect.

The play­ers must al­so un­der­stand that when tweets go out stat­ing that they are hun­gry, as they have not got­ten their mean al­lowance, it is em­bar­rass­ing to them, as they are not send­ing a prop­er mes­sage to the pub­lic and the many young peo­ple who see them as role mod­els.Some­times these things are bet­ter dealt with in­ter­nal­ly to get the best re­sults.

So all is not lost but we must look at ways to bet­ter re­la­tions in West In­dies crick­et and stop be­ing a laugh­ing stock to the world. The world has had enough opin­ions about pour crick­et on and off the field and it is high time that we close ranks and deal with our busi­ness.