It is back?to the crease but the law court may bowl the final ball.
A replay of the disputed Sagicor General Super Cup semi-final between BNB?St Catherine and Sagicor UWI has been ordered by the board of management of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) for April 25 at the Bayfield ground in St Philip.
But St Catherine, which won the 50-over match last December 12 by six wickets on home turf, won’t be playing over the game but seeking justice elsewhere, according to Queen’s Counsel Ralph Thorne.
“The club will be seeking further recourse in a place other than a cricket ground on Easter Monday. The BCA board will be asked to explain why it has not even condescended to give any reason for its decision,” Thorne told WEEKENDSPORT.
This was after an angry St Catherine Club president Mac Fingall confirmed he received a letter from the BCA yesterday, signed by its honorary secretary Gregory Nicholls, stating that UWI’s appeal against the decision taken by the BCA’s complaints and disputes committee was upheld by the local cricket governing body at a meeting on March 29.
But Fingall said no reasons were given for upholding the appeal.
“Mr Philip Nicholls and his committee wrote a very well-reasoned decision over six pages but the board did not even bother to write half page in defence of its decision,” Thorne said.
“In essence, the board must be saying that the two captains were wrong, the two umpires were wrong, the match referee was wrong, the complaints committee was wrong and that St Catherine was wrong when its members said that like many other clubs in Barbados, they definitely received the balls from the offices of the BCA.”
Fingall too, was at a loss over the decision.
“In sports, you don’t play over games where a decision was reached. That is a most dangerous precedent,” said Fingall, a former long-standing physical education teacher.
“We (St Catherine) didn’t break any rule. We played with a ball which we got from the BCA. The other semi-final was played with the same ball. Those balls were used by several teams throughout the tournament. We have absolute proof that those balls were used,” he affirmed.
Fingall said the same white balls with the Venom brand name cannot be purchased anywhere in the island.
UWI?had protested over St Catherine’s use of that type of ball but at the first hearing last December 14, the BCA’s complaints and disputes committee, under Nicholls’ chairmanship, threw out the protest, leading to an appeal by UWI.
“These balls are kept in the BCA’s office only. I would hate to think that just because we beat a team with ten regional players – a team that appears to be a professional set-up – [the defeat] cannot be taken,” Fingall declared.
“We beat them fair and square. Our team is talented just like any other team. That day, we played excellent cricket. We made only four mental errors during the entire game. Are we not supposed to win anything?”
Fingall also made it clear that the matter was far from over.
“I want the people of the country to know that it is not going to end like this. We outplayed them in every department of the game. Not a spinner got a wicket,” he pointed out. Guardian General Barbados Youth won the other semi-final against LIME to secure a place in the final for the first time.