Vin­ode Mam­chan

The T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) yes­ter­day con­firmed sup­port for for­mer West In­dies fast bowler Bar­ba­di­an Joel Gar­ner and lo­cal man Bal­dath Ma­habir at the up­com­ing West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) elec­tions next month.

Gar­ner will chal­lenge in­cum­bent Dave Cameron for the post of pres­i­dent while Ma­habir will chal­lenge for the post of vice pres­i­dent.

In con­firm­ing his de­ci­sion, Ma­habir said yes­ter­day the TTCB had giv­en him their word that they in­tend to nom­i­nate Gar­ner and him­self.

The elec­tions will be held on March 7, and Ma­habir will bat­tle the in­cum­bent Eman­u­al Nan­ton for the post of vice-pres­i­dent.

The TTCB has al­ready in­di­cat­ed their choic­es to Cameron and Nan­ton.

It is un­der­stood that Cameron took the news in stride and thanked the TTCB for the years of sup­port, while Nan­ton was not too pleased with the de­ci­sion.

Ma­habir is ex­pect­ed to meet with Gar­ner over the week­end to for­mu­late a cam­paign strat­e­gy. As it stands right now its a dead heat with Cameron and Nan­ton get­ting sup­port from Guyana (two votes), Wind­wards (two votes) and Lee­wards (two votes). Gar­ner and Ma­habir have the sup­port of the TTCB (two votes), Ja­maica (two votes) and Bar­ba­dos (two votes).

It means that it is six-six right now and if it stays so on elec­tion day, the di­rec­tors will be asked to take a sec­ond bal­lot, an hour af­ter the first, in a bid to break the dead­lock.

While Ja­maica has failed to sup­port their coun­try­man Cameron, he has been nom­i­nat­ed by the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) and sec­ond­ed by the Lee­ward Is­lands Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (LI­CA). The key to the bat­tle will be the Wind­wards, as it is un­der­stood that one of the votes there is de­cid­ed, so both camps will be keen to con­vince the Wind­ward Is­lands Crick­et Board to lend their sup­port.

A source close to the TTCB said at their meet­ing on Tues­day night they de­lib­er­at­ed long and hard over the events that took place re­cent­ly in West In­dies crick­et and it was de­cid­ed that too many mis­takes were made con­cern­ing the abort­ed In­di­an tour and the Cameron and Nan­ton had to be held ac­count­able.

Ac­cord­ing to the source: "The TTCB had dif­fer­ent views on a num­ber of things in re­cent times and at this time, it was de­cid­ed that the sup­port would go to new men at the helm."