TTCB – News

Lack of $$ stumps T&T T20 preparations
July 29, 2011

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s preparation for the Champions League T20 tournament later this year in India received a major setback yesterday with the cancellation of the Red Force participation in a warm-up tournament in Canada.

The tournament, which would have involved hosts Canada, Trinidad and Tobago and 2010 World T20 finalists Afghanistan was scheduled for mid-August in Toronto but the T&T Cricket Board on Friday announced that they were forced to opt out due to financial constraints.

T&T, by virtue of winning the 2011 Caribbean T20 Championships have qualified for the Champions League T20 but will have to play in a qualifying tournament to get into the main draw alongside five other teams from England, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and India.

The T&TCB had drawn up a programme of preparatory matches against worthy opponents leading up to the Champions League T20 and the Canada Tri Nations would have started the campaign in earnest.

Following T&T’s qualification for the Champions League T20 a budget was drafted and approaches were made to solicit the funds but to date no firm commitment has been forthcoming.

The T&TCB estimated that it would have cost close to $300,000 for the T&T team to play in the Tri-Nations tournament.

Concerns were raised on Friday that another warm-up tournament, involving Caribbean rivals Guyana and Barbados slated for the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain in late August may also have to be shelved because of the lack of funds further placing T&T’s Champions League T20 preparations in serious jeopardy.

Over the past weeks, the T&T cricketers have been involved in trial matches at the National Cricket Centre in Balmain, Couva but rain has seriously hampered onfield action. Nevertheless several noteworthy performances have caught the eyes of the national selectors.

But the latest setback has placed a damper on the expectation that T&T would replicate their giant-killing act at the inaugural Champions League T20 in 2009 when they played unbeaten to reach the final eventually losing to New South Wales Blues of Australia.

The team was captained by Daren Ganga and included Test players Dwayne Bravo, Lendl Simmons and Adrian Barath; hard-hitting allrounder Kieron Pollard and wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin.

Last year Guyana represented the West Indies in the tournament but they failed to ignite the competition like T&T did and bowed out after completing their schedule of matches.

The T&T Cricket Board is still hopeful that funds would be made available to provide the level of financial support that is needed to put back on track the national team’s preparations for the tournament, regarded as only second to the ICC T20 World Cup.