Azim Bassarath: Trinidad and Tobago too small for term limits for Cricket Board officers

President of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board Azim Bassarath. - AYANNA KINSALE
President of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board Azim Bassarath. - AYANNA KINSALE

AZIM Bassarath plans to seek re-election as president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB), when the local governing body holds its next elections on October 30.

The election date was decided on Saturday when the TTCB approved its new constitution.

Bassarath said on Monday, during a telephone interview, “I would be seeking re-election.”

Bassarath, who replaced former TT and West Indies wicketkeeper Deryck Murray as TTCB president in November 2009, said that the nomination of candidates for the board’s executive will close on October 15.

Former TT and West Indies Under-15 captain Zaheer Ali, in a letter to the TTCB membership on Saturday, called for more limits on presidents and officers of the board.

Bassarath said, “That can’t happen. We are living in a small place and the population is too small to accommodate that.”

On Ali’s point that the election committee should be confirmed a month before elections, with the approval of the board, Bassarath pointed out, “The election committee was approved by the entire board on Saturday. They are not affiliated in any way to the cricket board, they are independent persons.”

The election committee will comprise five members, headed by attorney Ronald Simon.

With regards to the new constitution, the long-serving TTCB president confirmed, “Forty-one people voted in favour of the new constitution, nobody voted against it and there was one abstention.”

Bassarath claimed, “From different quarters, people have been calling for term limits. The Cricket Board never had term limits. Since that was the trend, we went along with it.

“However, there was a clause in the constitution and there were some arguments in terms of whether we should go four years or (stay at) three years. That particular clause went to the board for (a) vote. I think it was voted 36 in favour of and six against, so it was unanimously carried.”

When contacted, former TT and West Indies leg-spinners Dinanath Ramnarine and Samuel Badree, as well as ex-TTCB executive director Baldath Mahabir, declined comment, as they were yet to see the changes made to the TTCB constitution.

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