PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago’s last ditch bid for a spot in the Regional First Class Championship final ended in disappointment Thursday when they failed to obtain a court injunction to stop the match from proceeding.
In a late evening sitting of the High Court, Justice Vasheist Kokaram denied an application from the T&T Cricket Board to have Friday’s contest between Combined Campuses and Colleges and Jamaica at the 3Ws Oval in Barbados halted.
Upset over tournament rules that saw their side miss out on the four-day final, TTCB filed an application for a judicial review of the West Indies Cricket Board’s decision to award Jamaica a spot in the final, claiming that T&T were the rightful second finalists.
This followed a no-decision result in last week’s semi-final where Jamaica batted almost 2-1/2 days to shut T&T out of the game. WICB rules stated that in the event of a no-decision, the finalists would be determined on the head-to-head meeting in the preliminary round. Jamaica had picked up first innings points over T&T in their sixth round clash at Sabina Park last month. T&T, however, finished above Jamaica in the overall standings, a fact they contended should have featured in the WICB’s decision.
TTCB’s lawyers Avory Sinanan and Gerald Ramdeen argued the decision was “skewed” and that the only interpretation of the regulations governing the tournament was that in the event of a draw or “no-result” the side with the greater number of points would qualify for the final.
In delivering his late afternoon judgement, however, Justice Kokaram said the rule in question was “consistent” with head-to-head regulations, noting that it was neither unfair nor unreasonable to interpret the clause to mean that the “no result” semi-final should be determined on head-to-head grounds.
“I don’t think any such interpretation is out of context or far from all logic. This court is not an appeal court,” he said.
“My only task was to determine whether the decision made was in such a way that it was unreasonable to uphold, and it was not.”
The fact that the match was being played outside of Trinidad and Tobago was also of concern, and Justice Kokaram said he was also mindful of the rights of the Jamaica and CCC teams.
“I have serious doubt to grant an injunction in a territory outside this,” he said.
“What troubles me is that it affects the rights of the Jamaica and CCC teams without having any representation here,” he added.
Earlier, attorney Jonathan Walker who represented the WICB, argued that that a Barbados court would have been the appropriate jurisdiction to file such an application.
He also advanced that in interpreting the rule, it was clear that a head-to-head ruling was the tie-breaker in the event of a no result in the semi-final, stressing that both teams knew of the rules before entering the competition.
“As a Trinidadian, I am not happy with it but those are the rules. Those are the rules the teams signed up for,” Walker said.
Leading a team of lawyers which included Gregory Pantin and Luke Hamel-Smith, he contended that granting an injunction would have had a crippling effect on all preparations for the final.
