Local cricket stars must step forward and assist in marketing cricket in T&T if the sport is to survive locally according to the chairman of the T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) marketing committee Rajendra Mangalie.
With an already fragile financial state, the TTCB coffers were met with the COVID-19 pandemic and the board has a meeting coming up at the end of the month to look at its finances and make cutbacks. This was alluded to by the president of the board Azim Bassarath, recently.
Mangalie, since taking charge of the marketing committee, has brought on several sponsors and things were heading in the right direction for the TTCB in terms of its finance. However, this setback and what is to come because of the struggles of many local businesses, has left the future uncertain.
Mangalie, however, thinks that all is not lost saying: "We can save the cricket. Yes, I agree that it is going to be tough moving forward but my team is a very enterprising one and we will be putting our best efforts forward.
"What will help us is if we can get some of our local stars to accompany us to meetings with corporate T&T, as we try to get some sort of investment back into the cricket. The stars must understand that the board would have invested in them while they were coming up and as such they must look to give back.
"We are not looking to the stars to put in their money, what we are looking for is assistance in terms of them accompanying us to some of the critical meetings so that the potential sponsor can see what is the result of their investment in cricket.
"We in Trinidad are considered leaders in terms of cricket administration and if we fail, what are we telling the rest of the Caribbean? I am willing to work twice as hard when things clear up to continue bringing investment into the sport because we saw for years that the board was being starved off funds.
"This new marketing committee was put in place and in no time we got the business done. So accept what is before us and trust me we are willing and ready to resume the hard work to get the required investment so that cricket continues to grow in this country."
Whilst, Mangalie was speaking from a national viewpoint, domestic cricket club owner Richard Ramkissoon is not very confident looking forward.
Ramkissoon, who controls the Central Sports cricket club that plays in the top flight of local cricket, said that it is a hefty cost for him to keep his club afloat.
"Comfortably we spend around $450,000 a year to keep the club running. We were in the second position when the league was called off this year and up to that point we had already spent in the region of $150,000. With the cricket board calling off the season and not awarding any winners, there is no way we could get anything back financially from the season.
"Moving forward it is going to be very difficult to play cricket locally. Many clubs, I envision, will fall by the wayside because funding will become an issue. Even the Premiership II clubs have to spend around $200,000 a year to play and this is going to be very difficult to find next season."