Trinidad and Tobago’s outstanding performance in the Airtel 2020 Champions League cricket tournament in India, has not caused the Government to consider having this country pull out of the problematic West Indies team altogether.

’Not at all,’ Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday in Tobago.

Manning outlined his administration’s position on the matter after a tour of the new Scarborough Hospital site in Tobago, in response to questions from reporters about the Trinidad and Tobago team’s victory against South Africa’s Cape Cobras about an hour earlier that secured its place in today’s final against Australia’s New South Wales Blues.

Asked about a growing sentiment in this country that Trinidad and Tobago can go on its own where cricket is concerned, Manning said, ’Cricket is one of the planks on which the integration movement in the Caribbean has been built and it is just like the University of the West Indies. These are two legacies of integration and the minute you start to talk about dividing cricket into its separate components you are talking about the fragmentation of the Caribbean.’

He said such a move is ’contrary to the policy of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago’, which is seeking a political and economic union with the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

As for yesterday’s victory, Manning said it had given him ’a lift’.

Also questioned on the matter, Sport Minister Gary Hunt supported the position outlined by Manning, as both wished the team well today.

Also congratulating the team yesterday were Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday and Congress of the People leader Winston Dookeran.

The Ministry of Sport and the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board yesterday called on fans to wear red today in support of the team.