Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board, Az­im Bas­sarath, is the sole can­di­date nom­i­nat­ed for the po­si­tion of vice pres­i­dent of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI).

With elec­tions due to be held on Sep­tem­ber 20 to ap­point a new vice pres­i­dent, CWI an­nounced on Thurs­day that on­ly Bas­sarath’s name had been put for­ward when nom­i­na­tions closed.

“At the close of nom­i­na­tions, Mr. Bas­sarath is the sole can­di­date, hav­ing been nom­i­nat­ed by the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion and Lee­ward Is­lands Crick­et Board,” CWI said in a state­ment.

“The nom­i­na­tions were cir­cu­lat­ed as cus­tom­ary, and every ter­ri­to­r­i­al board, which con­sti­tutes the share­hold­ers, was ad­e­quate­ly no­ti­fied. CWI is guid­ed by its Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­a­tion in con­duct­ing this elec­tion to en­sure the process is han­dled with the high­est stan­dards of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and trans­paren­cy.

“The up­com­ing elec­tion will pro­vide a time­ly res­o­lu­tion to the cur­rent va­can­cy in the of­fice of vice pres­i­dent and re­in­force CWI’s com­mit­ment to fair gov­er­nance,” it fur­ther added.

Ear­li­er this month, the elec­tion of Mr. Bas­sarath as CWI Vice Pres­i­dent was held at the 24th An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in An­tigua on March 25, 2023, in which he was un­op­posed and gained six votes, with two vot­ing against and four ab­stained, va­cat­ing the po­si­tion fol­low­ing a rul­ing by the High Court of Guyana on Au­gust 5 that his elec­tion to the po­si­tion was null and void.

As a re­sult, the de­ci­sion was made to have the re-elec­tions as soon as pos­si­ble.

Bas­sarath, who is al­so pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB), is un­der more scruti­ny fol­low­ing his elec­tion to the of­fice of vice pres­i­dent of CWI in March 2023. Caribbean neigh­bour and CWI stake­hold­er, the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB), has mount­ed a le­gal chal­lenge to Bas­sarath’s CWI vice pres­i­dent po­si­tion.

Through its at­tor­ney, Aru­dra­nauth Gos­sai, the GCB filed a 78-page mat­ter in the High Court of the Supreme Court of Guyana on Fri­day.

Bis­soondyal Singh, the pres­i­dent of De­mer­ara Crick­et Board, con­firmed for Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that the le­gal mat­ter was filed and arrange­ments are be­ing made to serve the par­tic­u­lars on Dr. Kishore Shal­low, pres­i­dent of CWI, vice pres­i­dent Bas­sarath, and the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer, Gre­go­ry Nicholls. 

The Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) nom­i­nat­ed Az­im Bas­sarath for the po­si­tion of Vice Pres­i­dent of CWI in Jan­u­ary 2023 in ac­cor­dance with

the Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­a­tion of CWI Inc. GCB lat­er with­drew the said nom­i­na­tion pri­or to the elec­tion. The with­draw­al was done in

writ­ing and was premised on cer­tain re­ports and in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by the GCB in re­la­tion to Bas­sarath’s con­duct as Pres­i­dent of the

Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board.

With CWI re­fus­ing to cor­rect the un­mis­tak­able un­law­ful elec­tion of Bas­sarath, GCB said it was left with no al­ter­na­tive but to ap­proach the High

Court for re­dress. The GCB there­after filed High Court Ac­tion No. 2024-HC-DEM-CIV-FDA-566.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the GCB, Messrs. Bas­sarath, Nichols, and CWI, who were named as re­spon­dents in the High Court ac­tion, did not file any de­fences or ap­pli­ca­tions pri­or to the first court hear­ing on Ju­ly 5, 2024. The High Court, on an oral ap­pli­ca­tion made by San­jeev Datadin, Coun­sel for CWI, Bas­sarath, and Nicholls, grant­ed fur­ther time to file any ap­pli­ca­tions that they may wish to do, but again, they failed to do so with­in the time­line fixed by the Court. The hear­ing of the mat­ter was ad­journed to Au­gust 5, 2024, the date of the judge­ment, which was al­so giv­en in the ab­sence. 

Al­so, on Au­gust 5, CWI stat­ed in a press re­lease that "the re­spon­dents re­spect­ful­ly dis­agree with the Court's rul­ing. Con­se­quent­ly, CWI has in­struct­ed its le­gal team to im­me­di­ate­ly file an ap­peal and will await the de­ci­sion of the ap­pel­late court." 

How­ev­er, on Mon­day, CWI is­sued an­oth­er press re­lease that stat­ed, "Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) will hold elec­tions for the of­fice of Vice Pres­i­dent on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2024. On Thurs­day, Au­gust 8, 2024, at a Board of Di­rec­tors meet­ing, in con­sid­er­a­tion of the re­cent ju­di­cial pro­nounce­ment from the High Court of Guyana con­cern­ing the chal­lenge to the Vice Pres­i­dent's elec­tion ini­ti­at­ed by the Guyana Crick­et Board, the de­ci­sion was made to have the re-elec­tions as soon as pos­si­ble. This de­ci­sion means that Mr. Az­im Bas­sarath has va­cat­ed the of­fice of Vice Pres­i­dent for CWI."