BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Officials of the Barbados Cricket Association insisted yesterday that cousins Carlos Brathwaite and Jonathan Carter must play for Barbados in this month’s WICB Regional Super50 Championship.
This decision came after an emergency meeting of the BCA board of management on Tuesday hours after Brathwaite and Carter were also named in the CCC’s 14-member squad for the same tournament.
The two young all-rounders have already been picked by the Barbados selectors for the national team for the tournament since September 22.
“It was unanimously agreed to support our national selectors in their selection of the [two] players for the Barbados team, and the board of management of the BCA remains committed to ensuring that the integrity of the BCA and Barbados cricket is not compromised in anyway,” said BCA Secretary Gregory Nicholls in a media release.
“Consequent on this decision, we have called on the West Indies Cricket Board to affirm its own policy and confirm that, from the time they were selected by Barbados, Brathwaite and Carter were, therefore, not available for selection by the CCC team.”
The issue had erupted, after the two players wrote to the BCA outlining their preference to play for the CCC, but their request was turned down.
Nicholls said the selection of Brathwaite and Carter was of grave concern to the BCA particularly since the issue was now being widely ventilated in the media in Barbados and across the region.
“The board of management of the BCA regrets that this matter has unfolded in the manner that it has, but remains firm in its stance that the best players in the eyes of our national selectors should be available to the Barbados national team before any other developmental entity that is invited by the WICB to participate in regional tournaments could or should exercise the option of choosing these players,” he said.
“The matter now rests with the WICB and we await their confirmation of the team that we have submitted to them. The board of management of the BCA reserves all of its rights in [this matter].”
In outlining the BCA’s reasons for sticking to their guns, Nicholls said that the two players have both reaped the financial benefits over the past 10 months of the historic national retainer contract programme and the WICB’s policy on the selection of players for development sides in its competitions.
“First, our statutory mandate to be responsible for the control and management of the game of cricket in Barbados as granted by an Act of Parliament since 1933 was considered,” he said.
“Secondly, the sustained investment in the development of cricket in Barbados under the current Development Plan which saw the historic implementation of retainer contracts as our last initiative in December 2010 was also considered.”
He added: “Thirdly, we considered the current policy of the WICB that territorial boards have first choice with regard to selection of players for their national teams.
“And finally, the impact of this issue on the players in question and on the entire Barbados team was thoroughly considered.”
Brathwaite, currently on duty with West Indies in Bangladesh, played for the CCC during the WICB Regional first-class championship earlier this year, when he made his debut, after he turned out for Barbados in the Caribbean Twenty20 Championship last January.
Carter played for Barbados in last year’s Super50 championship in Jamaica. This year, he also played for the national team in the Caribbean T20 and the regional four-day tournaments, and has never represented CCC, though last year he moved from now beleaguered local club Banks to the University of West Indies for the BCA Division 1 and major limited-overs competitions.
