The Barbados Tridents are still celebrating, but now the Guyana Amazon Warriors are contemplating.
The Caribbean Premier League’s (CPL) losing finalists, the Guyana Amazon Warriors, will be holding a special meeting in Georgetown today, to determine if they will continue the fight to have the result of the August 16 championship match deemed null and void.
The meeting comes about after the CPL yesterday turned down the Warriors’ original appeal, ruling the Barbados Tridents would remain champions of the popular T20 cricket tournament for 2014.
“We received the official report by the CPL yesterday, but we have to really sit down and review it. We will do that tomorrow (today),” Warriors team manager Omar Khan told the DAILY NATION by telephone link-up from Georgetown, yesterday.
According to Khan, team officials will decide after meeting today, if to escalate their protest action, or accept the ruling of the CPL’s cricket tournament committee.
“It is pretty straightforward what they (the CPL) said. We don’t have a problem with that. What we have a problem with is the manner in which the game ended,” Khan said.
“We have to weigh the relevance of it, and determine if it (the report) makes sense to us. We have to seriously consider if we should take the matter to the ICC, since they could also agree with the CPL’s decision. That is what we will be discussing when we meet tomorrow.”
The Warriors, losing finalists the year before as well, had officially protested the controversial victory, which came about when officials ruled Barbados the winners, and champions, after a heavy downpour, the second of the match, left Guyana on 107 for four, needing 46 runs from the final 25 balls, with three wickets in hand. The final had been played at Warner Park in St Kitts and the Warriors had officially protested the next day.
The Warriors argued that umpires (Gregory Brathwaite and Joel Wilson) may not have known the new Duckwork-Lewis calculations after the second downpour, and that Barbados were also given an advantage through a slow overrate.
But the CPL would have none of it.
In a press release yesterday, the CPL said its cricket tournament committee had carefully considered the report of the match referee and the arguments raised by the Amazon Warriors, but that the match referee had “properly applied the rules regarding the time allotted for the match.”
The CPL also noted that with reference to paragraph 6.2 of Section 3A of the tournament rules, teams are expressly precluded from objecting to the result of a match on the ground of any decision made by any umpire or the match referee. “This rule is intended to bring finality to matches,” it said.
According to the CPL, the match referee’s report clearly indicates that CPL chief Damien O’ Donohoe and tournament committee member Charles Wilkin, QC, had enquired if, in the interest of the match and the fans, the full match could be played without use of the Duckwort-Lewis system, but that the consent of both captains was required, but was not forthcoming, and they were informed the CPL did not have the authority to make such a ruling.
“In the circumstances, the cricket tournament committee has no authority nor does it find good reason under the CPL tournament rules to reverse the result or declare the match a nullity. Accordingly, the CTC has ruled that the final result stands.”
The CPL also gave the Warriors another avenue to seek redress. “The cricket tournament committee and CPL management would offer no objection to the matter being referred to the ICC, cricket’s world governing body, if contending parties still so desire, for a ruling that is definitive, transparent and expeditious,” the release concluded.
Chairman of the cricket tournament committee, former Jamaica Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, said the decision to award Barbados the match was the correct one. “Having carefully considered the report of the match referee and the arguments raised by the Guyana Amazon Warriors, the committee has concluded that there are no grounds for the result of the final to be reversed or nullified.”
