IAN WA­SON

gm­sports@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that dis­cus­sions have start­ed to have the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) ful­ly op­er­a­tionalised as an acad­e­my.

On Tues­day, pho­tos were cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia show­ing Dr Row­ley meet­ing with for­mer West In­dies Lim­it­ed Overs and T20 cap­tain, Kieron Pol­lard and for­mer WIPA Pres­i­dent, Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, in what ap­peared to be a crick­et con­ver­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a post-cab­i­net press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, in St Ann’s yes­ter­day, the prime min­is­ter, who is the cur­rent chair­man of the Cari­com Crick­et Com­mit­tee, when ques­tioned about the top­ic of dis­cus­sion be­tween the trio said that not much crick­et was spo­ken. He said that he met with a cou­ple of crick­eters as a side­bar.

Com­plet­ed in 2017, the BLCA was sup­posed to have been com­plet­ed in 2007 and should have been used as a warm-up venue for the 2007 ICC Crick­et World Cup when the West In­dies played host to crick­et’s show­piece event.

T&T host­ed group match­es in­volv­ing In­dia at the Queen’s Park Oval.

When for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning held talks with Bri­an Lara to dis­cuss a way for­ward for the new fa­cil­i­ty, the sec­ondary pur­pose of the venue was to serve as an acad­e­my that would nur­ture the growth of fu­ture crick­eters to fol­low in the foot­steps of the play­er in which the acad­e­my is named.

The venue has since host­ed four Caribbean Pre­mier League fi­nals, as well as One Day In­ter­na­tion­als and T20 in­ter­na­tion­als start­ing in 2022, be­com­ing the lat­est in­ter­na­tion­al venue in the Caribbean.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the prime min­is­ter, it is time the put the ‘acad­e­my’ in the name.

“The Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um was there was meant to be an acad­e­my,” Dr Row­ley told the Post Cab­i­net Me­dia brief­ing.

“It has been used as a crick­et ground, host­ing match­es which have been quite suc­cess­ful. But the con­cept of the Acad­e­my has nev­er been op­er­a­tionalised.”

Dr Row­ley said the need for the acad­e­my had be­come greater over the years. He said, “The crick­et­ing world is now a ma­jor sport­ing busi­ness, cre­at­ing huge op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­di­vid­u­als and na­tions. Sec­ond­ly, West In­dies crick­et has de­clined pre­cip­i­tous­ly in re­cent times, and there’s a role for gov­ern­ments to pre­vent West In­dies crick­et from be­com­ing ob­so­lete.”

Since the BLCA was been hand­ed over to the cus­tody of the peo­ple of T&T, the pris­tine venue has host­ed four T20 in­ter­na­tion­als and one One Day In­ter­na­tion­al be­tween West In­dies and In­dia in 2022 and 2023.

BLCA is al­so set to host Eng­land in De­cem­ber for two T20 in­ter­na­tion­al match­es. How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley not­ed, the ‘acad­e­my’ has not been op­er­a­tionalised.

“And that’s one of the dis­cus­sions that we would look at go­ing for­ward, both for our peo­ple at home and for the re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment of the game as well,” he said.

Crick­et West In­dies Vice Pres­i­dent and Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board Pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that he was in full sup­port of the prime min­is­ter.

Bas­sarath said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go, as usu­al, will be set­ting the peace and you know, guid­ing the oth­er Caribbean is­lands in that di­rec­tion. And I think that the Prime Min­is­ter is sit­ting in the right po­si­tion now be­ing chair­man of the cur­rent Cari­com crick­et com­mit­tee.”

He be­lieves that ac­ti­vat­ing the acad­e­my would ben­e­fit West In­dies crick­et.

“And al­so, this may be the start­ing point of tak­ing West In­dies crick­et where all of us re­al­ly want it to be,” he said.

Bri­an Lara has rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies in 131 Tests and scored 11,593 runs with a high score of 400 not out. The for­mer West In­dies cap­tain rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies in a fur­ther 299 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als scor­ing 19 hun­dreds in his suc­cess­ful ca­reer.

Lara, “the King of Port of Spain”, was in­duct­ed in­to the ICC Hall of Fame in 2012 at the awards cer­e­mo­ny held in Colom­bo, Sri Lan­ka.

At a press con­fer­ence at the con­clu­sion of the Forty-Fifth Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in T&T in Ju­ly, the Do­mini­can Prime Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced the ap­point­ment of Dr h Row­ley, as Chair­man of the Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al Sub-Com­mit­tee on Crick­et.

Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Dr the Hon Ralph Gon­salves, and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da, Dr. the Hon Kei­th Mitchell, were pre­vi­ous chair­men of the crick­et sub-com­mit­tee.