The Na­tion­al League Com­mit­tee (NLC) has writ­ten to the sec­re­tary of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), Ar­joon Ram­lal call­ing on him to con­vene a meet­ing to set up a com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate what they see as at­tacks on West In­dies off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine by the lo­cal board.

In a let­ter sent by for­mer West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA) pres­i­dent Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine yes­ter­day, the group which in­cludes Daren Gan­ga, Giles An­toine, Anil Ka­mal, Clint Pam­phille and An­dre Lawrence has called for a meet­ing on Fri­day March 4.

The group claimed that they re­ceived a re­quest from Nar­ine re­quest­ing in­ter­ven­tion in a mat­ter in­volv­ing him, with spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to the pres­i­dent, Az­im Bas­sarath, and an email with Bas­sarath's ad­dress which mocked Nar­ine at a time when he need­ed the to­tal sup­port of all the TTCB's mem­bers and stake­hold­ers.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing yes­ter­day, the mem­bers are of the view that they have a se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that the is­sue is ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed with ob­jec­tiv­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. "Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we do not wish our pur­suit of the truth to be taint­ed by any ap­pear­ance or al­le­ga­tions of im­pro­pri­ety, witch-hunt­ing or per­son­al vendet­tas. This is an ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive mat­ter and we do not wish to im­pose any fur­ther emo­tion­al bur­den on Mr. Nar­ine. He is go­ing through a dif­fi­cult and trau­mat­ic pe­ri­od in his life and ca­reer and we all need to deal with this is­sue with the ut­most dis­cre­tion and fair­ness."

The mem­bers claim that they are not seek­ing to change the past but to en­sure the right prece­dent is set. "Mr. Nar­ine as well as any oth­er play­er, should not be sub­ject to what seems on the sur­face to be a per­son­al at­tack by the Pres­i­dent of the TTCB and oth­er mem­bers of the TTCB Ex­ec­u­tives."

Nar­ine al­so claimed he was de­nied en­try to the Play­ers' En­clo­sure dur­ing the Nagi­co Tour­na­ment af­ter hav­ing been al­lowed on two pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions to en­ter.

And at­tempts were made to change the rules re­gard­ing his el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to bowl in na­tion­al tour­na­ments or­ga­nized by the TTCB. "The NLR views these mat­ters se­ri­ous­ly as they have the po­ten­tial to bring the TTCB in­to dis­re­pute, an or­ga­ni­za­tion which is sacro­sanct in its own right hav­ing been con­sti­tut­ed by an Act of Par­lia­ment Act No. 34 of 1989.

As elect­ed mem­bers of the TTCB we strive to up­hold the prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance and mea­sure suc­cess based on the bench­mark of what is con­sid­ered best prac­tice in sport ad­min­is­tra­tion. In this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter, we must ful­fill our fidu­cia­ry du­ty and rec­om­mend a course of ac­tion which is fair, cred­i­ble, trans­par­ent and eq­ui­table to both par­ties. This is in keep­ing with re­quest con­veyed to us by Mr Nar­ine for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter.

"In light of the above, we are seek­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss a suit­able list of per­sons or pan­el ac­cept­able to all who will con­duct, with our sup­port (for both the NLR and the TTCB) an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the mat­ters raised and make pro­nounce­ments on same for the greater good of the TTCB and the sport of crick­et in gen­er­al. We al­so hope that the out­comes of said in­ves­ti­ga­tions will al­low for any breach/es to be dealt with in ac­cor­dance with the con­sti­tu­tion of the TTCB and the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go."