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By Neto Baptiste
President of the Liberta Sports Club (LSC) and former West Indies fast bowler, Kenneth “Flipper” Benjamin, wants head of the national association, Leon “Kuma” Rodney, to tender his resignation with immediate effect.
Benjamin’s call follows the association’s recent decision to disqualify his Liberta Blackhawks team from contesting last Sunday’s Super40 final over an alleged breach of the competition’s player eligibility laws.
“Kuma it’s time for you to resign, I think so. I think this one [incident] has gone way [far] past anything else you have done because this definitely is where everybody can see that your interest is not cricket and cricket development; obviously it’s not,” he said.
Benjamin said the club will file a legal challenge against the decision but did not go into details.
The former West Indies youth coach said the club was denied an opportunity to appeal the decision while hinting they will also seek to have the current playing conditions overhauled due to a number of inconsistencies.
“Twenty-six of the same playing conditions says that if something happens and it is not covered in the playing conditions then the cricket committee should make a ruling but they should give 24 [48] hours for an appeal and that is the due process and that is in the playing conditions. … The playing conditions also says, anybody who plays cricket in Antigua and Barbuda is eligible to represent Antigua at any level, so obviously there are lots of contradictions in the playing rules and that is why there needed to be a sit down before we rushed to judgement because there is too much contradiction. Nothing in the playing conditions outlines what an overseas player is,” he said.
Questioned about the club’s decision to turn out for the final, despite the disqualification, Benjamin said the body never received anything official from the cricket association as the decision was relayed via WhatsApp and not on an official letter. He added that efforts to reach Rodney were not successful.
“We reached out in terms of appealing and we got no response and so we said, hey if we don’t turn up and Empire doesn’t come then they will say Liberta didn’t turn up, so let us go up there and make sure. We had to go and make our case to the match referee that we didn’t get anything official from the cricket association and so on,” the former player said.
On Monday, Rodney stuck by the body’s decision to disqualify the Liberta Blackhawks, welcoming them to challenge the decision in court.
The New Winthorpes Lions defeated Empire Nation by eight wickets in Sunday’s final to win their first Super40 title.
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