St. John’s Antigua- The Antigua & Barbuda senior national cricket team has been barred from taking further part in the Leeward Islands Cricket Association (LICA) Three Day Tournament.

The team, which returned to Antigua on Tuesday night, had been slated to take on Nevis at the ET Willet Park in Nevis on Wednesday.

The management staff reportedly had issues with the accommodations that had been made in Nevis and reportedly opted not to make the trip, thus forfeiting the fixture.

Sources revealed that the Antigua & Barbuda team then requested that their final match in the competition, which was to have been against Montserrat in St Kitts be brought forward to Thursday.

This, according to the source, would have allowed the Antigua & Barbuda team to depart St Kitts for Antigua at an earlier date.

The former champions, instead of receiving a response to their request, were however reportedly informed by unnamed sources that they were to pack their bags and return to Antigua, as the game against Montserrat would not materialise.

Efforts to reach the president of LICA, Gregory Shillingford, for clarification on the matter proved futile as several calls went unanswered and were not returned.

President of the Antigua & Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA), Enoch Lewis, however confirmed the team’s return, but opted not to go into the details of what might have transpired in St Kitts as he is awaiting a report from Team Manager Hugh Gore.

“The team is definitely home. I can’t go into any details though because I haven’t had a report from the manager as yet. Let me put it this way, all the resources that were required to ensure that the Antigua team participate in the tournament have been provided,” Lewis said.

“The manager has expressed to me just some verbal issues but it is not in its totality. There are several issues that he had expressed to me which I indicated that I need a report on and I don’t really want to go into these issues before I really have a report.”

Reports coming out of Nevis however indicate that President of the Nevis Cricket Association Sterling Marshall–Heyliger told local media that he was privy to an earlier correspondence sent Tuesday by Lewis which indicated that the Antigua & Barbuda cricket team would not be making the trip to Nevis.

At a meeting on Wednesday night at the ET Willet Park, the Nevis team was therefore informed that the match was called off, and persons who had already requested time off from work, would have been expected to report to their various work places.

Antigua & Barbuda have won the tournament 10 times over the past 12 years with their dominance periodically broken in 2006 and 2007 when St Kitts and Anguilla, respectively, emerged victorious.