Battle heats up for T&TCB

With two more zones to go, the battle for leadership of the T&T Cricket Board (T&TCB) between the incumbents led by former Test player, Deryck Murray, and the Movement for Change team, remains in high gear. So far both teams have taken control of three zones each, with Movement for Change claiming Central on Saturday night after chalking up North East 6-0 and South East 7-1 last week. The opposition took victory as four of the six members to serve on the zonal council for the 2009/2011 period have reportedly pledged support for the Movement for Change team.

These included former national selector Dudnath Ramkessoon, who secured 32 votes, Avinash Jaggernauth 28, Anderson Ramdath 28 and Rajendra Poorai 26. For the incumbents, Lalman Kowlessar had 41 votes and Larry Kowlessar 36. On Monday night, the current administration romped home to a 6-0 landslide as clubs in the East held zonal elections. Out of a possible total of 26 votes chairman of the zone Tarandath Sammy, Aslim Mandol and Sharaz Mohammed secured 24 votes while Sukesh Maniam, Kelvin Arneaud and Jewan Seeraj polled 23 each.

Trevor Alleyne and Wendell Eversley who were aiming to break into one of the Murray administration’s strong holds, failed in their bid, as they were only able to garner nine and seven votes respectively. Secretary of the East Zone, Maniam speaking on behalf of the six representatives, said he was not surprised at the result since he believed the current officers had performed extremely well over the last two years. He is confident the present incumbents will be endorsed to serve for another term at the zone’s AGM. “Since the zone was re-established, we have done extremely well and this year in particular, has been fantastic as we won every inter zonal youth competition organised by the board,” said Maniam. He added that his council was very grateful to the current administration led by Deryck Murray for making the decision to re-establish the East Zone.
Meanwhile the Tobago Cricket Association (TCA), which recently became a zone, has already held its election and has pledged support to Murray and his administration.

President of the TCA, Ignatius Trim, said the T&T Cricket Board has done an excellent job and this is manifested by the performances of the national teams over the last three to four years. “This current group is very stable and I think that they should be given a chance to continue the good work they have been doing. Tobago is fully behind the Deryck Murray administration.”
The elections for the last two zones, North and South West, are expected to take place shortly and Murray’s Friends of Cricket are favoured to take these two Zones.

Kevin Sunich
Trinidad Guardian