Trinidad and To­ba­go men’s head coach Rayad Em­rit and women’s coach Meris­sa Aguilleira have ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over Crick­et West In­dies’ (CWI) de­ci­sion to sus­pend the Men’s and Women’s Su­per50 com­pe­ti­tions, as well as the Women’s T20 Blaze, be­cause of fi­nan­cial con­straints.

CWI chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) Chris Dehring an­nounced the de­ci­sion last Wednes­day, leav­ing play­ers across the re­gion with­out one of their ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ties for com­pet­i­tive crick­et.

Em­rit said the sus­pen­sion was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing for the men’s play­ers, many of whom were an­tic­i­pat­ing the Su­per50 af­ter a lengthy break from re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, it’s dis­ap­point­ing not hav­ing Su­per50,” Em­rit said. “The last tour­na­ment that we played fin­ished in May and the guys had a very big lay­off.”

While some play­ers were in­volved in the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL), oth­ers have had lit­tle com­pet­i­tive crick­et since the last re­gion­al tour­na­ment end­ed.

“Some of the guys took part in the CPL and the rest who were not part of that are look­ing for­ward to play­ing Su­per50,” Em­rit said. “So, it is dis­ap­point­ing. Again, we know the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of CWI and their fi­nan­cial sta­tus.”

Em­rit said the play­ers had been aware for some time that CWI was fac­ing fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, but the can­cel­la­tion of an­oth­er tour­na­ment, com­bined with changes to play­er con­tracts, has added to their con­cerns.

“It has been around; the talk has been around for a while and the play­ers them­selves are very dis­ap­point­ed not hav­ing an­oth­er tour­na­ment as well as con­tracts be­ing cut from 12 months to sev­en months,” he said. “That’s al­so a bit of a dis­ap­point­ing thing for the play­ers, but I guess we have to work with what we have.”

De­spite the set­back, Em­rit said the Tr&T team will now fo­cus its at­ten­tion on de­fend­ing its ti­tle when the re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion re­sumes in Feb­ru­ary.

“We have a ti­tle to de­fend start­ing in Feb­ru­ary,” he said. “So, all our en­er­gy is go­ing to be put in­to that.”

He added that the pri­or­i­ty will be to as­sem­ble the strongest pos­si­ble squad when the time comes.

“We’ll have to make sure that we can get the best squads avail­able and as­sem­ble the best team to make sure that we can go all out and try to de­fend our ti­tle,” Em­rit said.

Aguilleira, a for­mer West In­dies Women cap­tain, was equal­ly con­cerned about the im­pact of the de­ci­sion on the re­gion’s fe­male crick­eters.

“I think I’m re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the play­ers didn’t get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play the T20 match­es,” Aguilleira said. “I know it’s some­thing that they al­ways look for­ward to.”

She be­lieves the can­cel­la­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling be­cause women’s crick­et in the Caribbean al­ready suf­fers from a lack of play­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“It is def­i­nite­ly not a step in the right di­rec­tion,” Aguilleira said. “It’s not where we want to go, not just as a coun­try, but as a re­gion as well.”

Aguilleira said the sit­u­a­tion needs ur­gent at­ten­tion, warn­ing that the lack of com­pet­i­tive crick­et could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for play­er de­vel­op­ment.

“When you look at the play­ers in the Caribbean, we are not play­ing suf­fi­cient amounts of match­es,” she said. “To have one of our ma­jor tour­na­ments elim­i­nat­ed be­cause of fi­nance is some­thing that we re­al­ly need to pay at­ten­tion to and see how best and how fast we can rec­ti­fy the is­sue be­cause it could def­i­nite­ly be trou­bling for us in the near fu­ture.”

She point­ed to the al­ready lim­it­ed pool of fe­male play­ers avail­able for se­lec­tion, mak­ing reg­u­lar com­pet­i­tive crick­et even more im­por­tant.

“We al­ready have a small pool of play­ers to get se­lec­tion from,” Aguilleira said. “So the de­vel­op­ment of women’s crick­et, I’m just hop­ing that things are han­dled quick­ly.”

With the re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions sus­pend­ed, Aguilleira be­lieves ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards must take greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing their play­ers con­tin­ue to get mean­ing­ful com­pet­i­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“For now the ter­ri­to­r­i­al board should fo­cus on en­sur­ing that the play­ers get suf­fi­cient amounts of match­es and con­tin­ued tour­na­ments, lo­cal tour­na­ments,” she said.

Aguilleira ac­knowl­edged that lo­cal com­pe­ti­tions, in­clud­ing club tour­na­ments or­gan­ised by the T&T Women’s Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion, could pro­vide some op­por­tu­ni­ties, but be­lieves the wider struc­ture of women’s crick­et now needs care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.

“I think every­thing will need to re­al­ly take a back seat and fo­cus on the struc­ture and the way for­ward,” she said.

For Aguilleira, the cur­rent fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing CWI should al­so serve as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­assess the de­vel­op­ment of the game and es­tab­lish a sus­tain­able plan for the fu­ture.

“What we need to be do­ing now is plan­ning for the fu­ture and un­der­stand­ing that this is a chal­lenge,” she said. “Yes, in life you face chal­lenges and tribu­la­tions, but it’s how you rise from it.”

She is now look­ing to CWI and the ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards to demon­strate re­silience and put mea­sures in place to en­sure the set­back does not stall the growth of women’s crick­et.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to see the re­silience from the board and how they take this ini­tia­tive and the is­sue that is in front of them and how the best they can deal with it in or­der to en­sure that women’s crick­et con­tin­ues to grow in the Caribbean and not just be stag­nant,” Aguilleira said. “So I look for­ward to see­ing the prepa­ra­tion stage or the plan­ning stage af­ter this dev­as­tat­ing news.”