Players from Barbados, Jamaica and the Windward Islands were forced to sleep in the corridors of the Cascadia Hotel after arriving on an early morning flight from Guyana and being unable to check in until mid-afternoon. Ernest Hilaire, the WICB’s chief executive, said the Board was only responsible for financing accommodation arrangements and not the actual planning. “Statements have been made that the Board is responsible for what has happened. That is not true,” Hilaire told CMC Sports here. “The way in which the regional matches are approached, the territorial Boards are responsible for all the cricket operations and arrangements being made locally. The Board will provide the financing for those arrangements to be made.” The Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board said it had not been responsible for making the bookings and contended the WICB had been informed not to land the teams on Carnival Tuesday, the final day of the country’s carnival celebrations which is also a national holiday. Hilaire said, however, the Board usually made all travel arrangements for teams but argued that any impression given that the WICB faltered in making adequate accommodation arrangements was not fair or accurate. “There are persons who probably just do not want to accept they fell flat and did not do what was expected of them. They miscalculated. It was Carnival Tuesday in Trinidad but to attempt to blame West Indies cricket for it is not true,” he stressed.
He added: “If you ask the Boards in Jamaica, in Barbados, they will tell you they made the accommodation arrangements, they arranged the transportation of the teams.
“There are some Boards that are very good at doing it, there are some Boards that are not so good at doing it, and there are some Boards because they are new to the task cannot seem to get it right.”
