Mpingwe Sports Club’s (MSC) cricket teams and Oriental Cricket Club (OCC) have refused to be affiliated to the Malawi Cricket Union (MCU), making themselves ineligible to vote or participate in sponsored domestic tournaments.
But the other Southern Region teams Blantyre Sports Club (BSC), Indian Sports Club (ISC) Thyolo Sports Club and Cricket Academy have been affiliated along with Central Region sides Muslim Cricket Club, Indian Country Club and Alendo Cricket Clubs and the Northern Region’s Mzuzu Cricket Club.
The newly elected MCU executive committee embarked on the club affiliation process countrywide after taking office on December 5 2013 as per the 15 conditions the African Cricket Association gave them to fulfill before they can be officially re-admitted into the continental body’s fold by the end of April.
The deadline for submission of affiliation forms to MCU was February 14, but MSC and OCC did not do so even after the deadline was extended to March 3.
However, MSC executive member Makbul Latif could not disclose the reason the club’s eight teams and the OCC have opted out of their mother body, saying the MCU president Vivek Ganesan is better placed to reveal the reason.
“Ask the MCU president about this issue. Ask him if he has spoken to the teams to find out the reasons,” said Latif.
Nevertheless, Ganesan said he tried several times to call the Blantyre-based teams to a meeting to find out the motive behind the club’s refusal and discuss the matter amicably but they did not turn up.
“I might not know the motives behind their refusal to be affiliated to MCU because they do not show up to meetings we arrange to discuss the issue. I believe they just want things to be run the way they used to be run in the past when there was no operational structure or code of ethics,” said Ganesan.
But one of MSC’s cricket players, who sought anonymity, said the MSC teams shunned the affiliation because the newly adopted constitution bars teams belonging to a particular club to vote during elections.
