Cricket association to review rules governing use of neutral venues

The Antigua & Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA) said it will move to put regulations in place to govern situations where teams, when playing away from home, are mandated to either contribute to or assume responsibility for the preparation of the ground ahead of their scheduled matches.
This, after a public debate erupted over the practice when the manager of Jennings cricket club, Glen Miller, said his team had refused to pay the $200 requested by the Rising Sun Spartans team as partial payment for the preparation of the Rising Sun facility located in St John’s.
Jennings and New Winthorpes were slated to clash at the venue last week after New Winthropes indicated to the ABCA that their venue was unavailable. The $400 preparation cost was to be evenly split between the two teams.
However, Vice President of the ABCA, Kenny Lewis, labelled the situation unfortunate and said he considers the request a reasonable one.
“We’ll have to definitely, at the end of the season, review the whole thing. I don’t see that in 2017 it is not just practical that a team is not making an effort to do anything but at the end of the day to come and just want to go around to all the fields … we love cricket and we will always facilitate,” he said.
“There has to be a point that if something should happen that Liberta should say to Jennings that we want a little [help] because we are in a jam, that you should be able to assist in some way or the other. I think that now it has come to this point that we will definitely have to review it for 2018.”
Manager of the Rising Sun team, Wayne Hewlett, explained the rationale for the fee, stating that although government is responsible for the facility, the club is also charged with preparation outside of the assistance rendered by government.
“The government cuts the field [on a monthly basis] because they utilise the field to do all sorts of different stuff and anything other than that then we have to deal with it. If we have a game and the government has already done their cut, we have to manicure the field because it is going to be required by us. We can’t say that the government did not come and cut the field so we can’t have the game,” he said.
Meanwhile, Miller said that his real contention was the timeline in which Jennings was notified of the required fee.
“When they are saying that I knew a long time ago, that’s a lie because there was no decision made and Kenny Lewis himself declared that he is the one who was going to take the bull by the horn. I am not a mind reader. If you make a decision you have to communicate with us,” he said.
The ABCA’s 40 overs competition is expected to continue this weekend at venues across the island.