This time, Her Majesty’s Prison Officers will take the cricket field.
They want a result on the field of play, and not in the law courts.
The Prison Officers now have no intention of battling the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) in court to determine the winner of their rescheduled Sagicor Shield match against St Thomas club Melrose.
The twice-rescheduled match will now be played tomorrow, at Padmore Village, in St Philip, starting at 11 a.m.
That decision was made by the Barbados Cricket Association after hearing from legal teams of both clubs recently.
“After listening to arguments by counsel . . . the board determined that it has found no grounds for overturning the decision of the Complaints and Disputes Committee,” the BCA said in a release issued on Wednesday.
“Accordingly, in the circumstances, the decision of the committee is upheld, and the appeal [by Her Majesty’s Prison Officers] is dismissed,” the governing body said.
Last Saturday, HMPO refused to take the field at the same venue for the rescheduled match, arguing on appeal that they had previously been determined to be winners when Melrose forfeited a substantive match.
Attorney-at-law for the HMPO, Arthur Holder, however, told the DAILY NATION yesterday that his clients would abide by the ruling of the BCA’s Complaints and Disputes Committee, which heard their appeal last week and determined the club had no standing.
“We will abide by that ruling and play the match on Saturday,” Holder said. “We presented our case to the Barbados Cricket Association, and they have made their decision. We will play the match and try to win it on the field.”
The attorney said their abiding by the BCA’s latest decision was not a case of giving up, but understanding what kind of drawn-out legal process could have arisen had they filed any injunction with the Supreme Court to challenge the BCA’s latest ruling.
The BCA has also ruled that if there is a no-decision for whatever reason in tomorrow’s match, that the HMPO will be declared winners.
Such a win would put the Prison Officers in the quarter-finals.
With the BCA’s decision, other matters in the Shield tournament have now crystallised. The winners of tomorrow’s match will play the Barbados Defence Force in the quarter-final on August 10.
Also playing that day will be the first semi-final between the Psychiatric Hospital and Rocklyn Isolation Cavaliers at the Pine Basin.
Combermere are already in the other semi-final and will have to await the winner of the BDF match against HMPO or Melrose.
That match will be played on August 31 at Kensington Oval.
The initial match between Melrose and HMPO had been re-scheduled in the first place after a mix-up regarding email correspondence sent out to both teams by the BCA.
The Complaint and Disputes Committee had met a fortnight ago to hear a protest by Melrose, who had established there were extenuating circumstances that led to them not playing in the knockout game.
