Bellville Cricket Club’s participation in the 2016-17 Western Province Cricket Association premier league has suddenly been cast into doubt.
The Northerns Suburbs-based team currently occupy seventh position in the 10-team WPCA premier league standings – and were ostensibly not in danger of being relegated to the first division A, prior to emergence of seamer Chris Russell’s early-season ineligibility.
“It was picked up after the overseas player registration deadline that there was no registration documents for Chris Russell at WPCA office,” read a statement from the WPCA local leagues committee.
“Bellville CC claim to have registered Russell with the WPCA office before the deadline of registration of overseas players and before he played his first match for Bellville CC in the current season. The club was requested by the WPCA office to submit documents and evidence of Russell’s registration that were submitted to be further investigated.
“Members perused the documentation submitted by Bellville CC and deemed it inconclusive. Bellville will lose points for two premier league games in which Russell played during the first half of the 2015-16 season. These two games would be the two games that they got the highest points for.”
The infringement will likely see Bellville Cricket Club lose almost 40 points, pushing them below St Augustine Cricket Club, Victoria Cricket Club and United Cricket Club, who presently occupy eighth, ninth and 10th position respectively in the WPCA premier league table.
“The club will not lose points for the games that the player played in the second half of the season due to the investigations that were ongoing. Furthermore, the club is fined R5,000 for transgressing. The LLC has exercised its discretionary powers not to award any points to the opposition teams that played against Bellville CC as no complaint was lodged by the opposition but was picked up by the LLC,” continued the WPCA LLC statement.
Bellville CC will likely appeal the decision.