By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA) could make a formal request to both the Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Health within the next week, as the body seeks a return to competition since having lost that privilege back in March.
President of the cricket association, Leon Rodney, made the disclosure this week adding that the body’s cricket committee is currently finalising which competition they will seek permission to host on return.
“The committee had a meeting yesterday [Monday] so we are looking at some possibilities and hopefully by weekend we should be able to say what it is we’re trending towards. We were thinking some red ball cricket but based on the discussions I don’t think we will lean too much towards that but give us until this weekend or so,” he said.
Following a successful Super 40 competition in early March, the Ministry of Sports revoked the association’s permission to stage competitions. The decision was made based on a short video showing fans running onto the playing field in celebration after the CUB Bethesda Golden Eagles beat Anderson Carty Empire Nation by six wickets to clinch an exciting final at the Bethesda playing field.
Since then, the cricket association has not hosted any competitive matches.
Rodney said however, that the girls training camp, a joint effort between the association and Cricket West Indies (CWI) continued to grow on a weekly basis.
“Where I was on Saturday, at Police [Recreation Ground], we have a very good turnout of about 19 persons. I don’t know what happened down at Liberta, Kenneth would be able to give you the numbers over there, and Ajarni should be able to give you the numbers at Pigotts, but we had a nice little increase there. It’s a challenge because we are competing with the computer games and so forth, but I think we are doing a very good job with the number we have so far so it can only get better,” he said.
Following a recent meeting between the sports ministry and the heads of associations, it was agreed that the sporting bodies would make formal requests to host competitions, with those requests subject to approval from the ministry.