Sport Minister Olivia Grange and Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) President ”Billy” Heaven say public sentiment that neither of their entities is prioritising the nation’s cricketing interests is unfair and baseless.

Grange says the Jamaica Tallawahs required more money than the Government could provide, given the number of sporting associations it has to fund.

Grange’s comments are in response to recent public criticism that the Government does not have Jamaica’s cricket interests at heart. This is because of its decision not to bid for games in the ICC Men’s Twenty20 (T20) World Cup being hosted by the West Indies and the United States this year. Her response also follows the decision by owners of the Tallawahs franchise to move the team to Antigua and Barbuda, leaving Jamaica without a team in the 2024 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 competition.

“For all those who have been commenting and giving the impression that we are not pro-cricket, I want to reassure them that we are,” Grange said during a presentation ceremony at the High Commission of India in St Andrew on Thursday afternoon.

Former Tallawahs Chief Executive Officer Jeff Miller told the Jamaica Observer recently that the last time the franchise received any funding from the Government, it was a figure of US$7,000 (roughly J$ 1 million) just ahead of the 2020 CPL season. He cited this as one of the main reasons for the decision to leave the island.

Grange said in September last year that the Government’s decision not to bid for World Cup games followed a cost analysis done which showed that it would require $450 million, which she said was too high, to bid and upgrade Sabina Park in Kingston in preparation for those games.

But although she refused to give a figure, Grange said on Thursday that cricket was one of the Government’s highest earners from its annual sports budget.

“Cricket was among the top five sporting disciplines that got significant amounts [of funding],” she said. “In fact, cricket ranks third on that list ahead of netball. Of course, track and field and football got a significant amount but cricket ranked third.”

But Grange says that although the Tallawahs represented Jamaica, it was a private entity and not a national team, meaning that although the Government provided funding, it was not mandated to.

“The Tallawahs bear our country’s name but is not strictly a national team and is therefore not covered in the allocation to the Jamaica Cricket Association,” she said. “However, we have sought to provide special support to the Tallawahs at the level that our funds may permit.

“The Tallawahs require more than we can provide but I’m sure the Tallawahs and their existence was not depending on the Government of Jamaica to bankroll them. But in order to give them more, we would have to cut funding to the more than 40 national sports federations such as football, netball, and track and field, which depend on the Government to run their programmes and have been requesting additional funds which we are challenged to provide.”

Heaven says there is no correlation between how cricket is administrated and the decision not to bid, nor the Tallawahs’ departure.

“It’s a separate issue that boils down to affordability and how the Government perceives its position, and what are priorities to the Government,” Heaven said after the event. “We are producing more players now for the international market than ever before. So, it cannot be that there’s a relationship between the two. There’s no correlation there.”

But Heaven says he understands stakeholders’ disappointment at both events, especially as both occurred within a similar time frame.

“I am equally disappointed that people won’t be able to go down to Sabina Park to watch cricket,” he said. “But let’s not lose sight, though, of the fact that you can still watch cricket although there won’t be a Jamaica Tallawahs team.”

Heaven says there needs to be further scrutiny of the agreement between Cricket West Indies (CWI) and CPL as he believes it to not be in the best interest of the country.

“It is disadvantageous to Jamaica,” he said. “It is prejudicial to cricket in Jamaica and that agreement, in the first instance, spans 30 years. It came into being in 2012 and when you look at the return from that – in the first year, the agreement brings US$1.375 million (then over J$120 million) and at the end of 30 years, it is US$1.75 million (over J$273 million). There’s no increase whatsoever, even to keep pace with the inflationary effect.

“So, we have to go back to look at that agreement to make it more workable for the region, including Jamaica.”

Heaven says CPL competes with the region’s national associations and CWI for sponsorship from not only the private sector but also governments.

“CPL and all these franchises are exceptional, but they speak to an entertainment value, per se,” he said. “They do not address the element of development in the way that you want to develop your product called cricket. CPL does not do that, neither do they put back monies into the development of cricket in the territories.”

Heaven says the JCA has met with Tallawahs owners and the CPL on numerous occasions about their investing in the local development programme but has not received any support.

“But I regret that we have lost the franchise because Brand Jamaica is affected,” he said. “But that’s totally outside the hands of the JCA.”