By Neto Baptiste

The question as to whether or not teams will get the opportunity to compete in a T20 cricket tournament this year has seemingly been answered with the issuance of a press release by the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA) on Friday, outlining that the tournament has been shelved.

Vice President of the association and head of the body’s competitions committee, Kenny Lewis, said that although the clubs considered utilising select community venues in the absence of both the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium and the Coolidge Cricket Ground, the length of the schedule remained a concern for all.

“We looked at the possibility of having maybe one or two venues in the community to have it, but the timeline is what we are looking at. It’s 20-plus games you’re looking at – know that you could only get in about two games per day, and it is a difficulty to start any game at 9:00 am in Antigua. If you start at 11:00 then that would take you to about 1:00 pm or 2:00 pm and that is one game, and the next one would take you until about 5:00 pm so you can’t get in a third game, and so it would drag the tournament way down into September,” he said.

On Thursday, president of the cricket association, Leon Rodney, said he would ask Lewis to consider a home and away format for the tournament after two major venues became unavailable. The president’s statement was however made without the knowledge that the clubs and competitions committee had already made a decision.

Lewis said that despite the setback, they will be moving forward with the tournament as part of their 2025 calendar.

“We tried on many occasions at the association level to have dialogue with Amer, and they refused so why should we be begging people to come and talk to us when they keep on refusing? I am in dialogue with the clubs, and the clubs are saying that with the level of disrespect meted out by Dario and the Cool & Smooth authorities, that they are not willing at this moment and they prefer to play a T20 under the umbrella of the ABCA,” he said.

“Nobody from Cool & Smooth is willing to come out and apologize and say, hey look, we made a mistake and so on, and so I am 100 percent behind the thing and I really don’t care because this is a fight that both Bethesda and Liberta have been putting on for years,” Lewis added.

Following the cancelation of the popular Cool & Smooth T20 Explosion in June, due to stalled negotiations between teams and organizer Dario Barthley over proposed payments to players, clubs associated with the cricket association asked the body to host a tournament of its own.

The ABCA tournament was slated to bowl off on July 9.