by RANDY BENNETT
THE WEST INDIES CRICKET BOARD (WICB) has delivered an early Christmas present ?to Combined Campuses ?and Colleges (CCC).
?In a shocking turn of events, the WICB surprisingly overturned its decision not to allow CCC to participate in next year’s Regional Super50 Tournament scheduled to be held in Trinidad and Tobago.
It now means that CCC, last year’s losing finalists, will compete along with Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Windward Islands and Ireland in next month’s highly anticipated tournament.
CCC has taken the place of the United States who, along with Ireland, were earmarked as the two non-regional teams to participate in the tournament, which the board said would have a major sponsor.
“I’m hearing that CCC has been included back into the Super50 competition, but I haven’t gotten any official confirmation from the WICB as yet so right now, I have no comment,” CCC manager Horton Dolphin told NATIONSPORT last night.
The decision was made following a meeting at the Marriott Hotel in St Kitts last Saturday, which was convened by the WICB’s board of directors under the chairmanship of president Dave Cameron.
The announcement, made in a release from the WICB yesterday, comes just days after players from the CCC made an appeal to the WICB to change its stance, after Cameron broke the news that the WICB had opted not to include them in either the 2014 Super50 or Four-Day competitions.
“The board took a decision to extend a special invitation to Combined Campuses and Colleges to participate in the 2014 edition of the WICB Super50 Tournament.
?“The six territorial teams – Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and Windward Islands – will participate in the tournament along with Ireland and the CCC. The teams will compete for the Clive Lloyd Trophy,” the release said.
During a recent interview with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Cameron said that CCC had been axed for “commercial reasons”.
??“It is purely a commercial reason so although one has to understand that we have to look at development, at the same time we have to find a way to get our commercial property sponsored.
“The Trinidad and Tobago government has said that they are willing to support the Super50 tournament; that they are looking at it from a tourism perspective. The idea is Come For Cricket, Stay For Carnival,” Cameron said.
?“And hence when our committees looked at it, cricket and marketing, they thought that the best way was to have the six [traditional] teams and invite two additional teams to participate, which would support Trinidad’s objective of the tourism aspect.”
The WICB’s sudden change of heart will come as a much welcomed relief to Sir Hilary Beckles, principal of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, who had openly criticized the regional board for excluding the CCC.
One of the other major developments coming out of the meeting was that the WICB approved a decision to play seven day-night matches during next year’s regional first-class championship.
