The controversy of umpires not showing up and the use of traditional white clothing and a red ball during the opening match of the Lindo’s T20 tournament on Wednesday night at Somerset only served to validate Warwick’s decision to withdraw from the competition, player-coach Lionel Cann said yesterday.Warwick made the decision this week to pull out from the competition over concerns that the midweek competition was not well planned and that it didn’t support the club’s youth programme.Cann said asking players to leave work at 5 o’clock and be at Somerset for even a later 6.15 start was ‘unrealistic’. Initially games were scheduled to start at 5.45.“I got an e-mail last Thursday at 4 o’clock saying the schedule was out for the T20 and that games would be starting at 5.45,” said Cann of correspondence received from the Bermuda Cricket Board.“Once I had that I asked to have a meeting with the committee at Warwick and to deal with pros and cons of us being a part of that league. One of the things was that 5.45 in Somerset was unrealistic, with many people working until 5 and then trying to start a T20 match at 5.45. At Warwick we’re into development which means warm-ups before games, but you’re going to have players rushing there for 5.45. Some will be late, other teams won’t be showing up or will be short. What sort of cricket do you expect to get when guys are showing up late?“There are a lot of logistics, we’re playing with red balls and who is going to sponsor the balls? You are playing the T20 matches at Devonshire Rec and Somerset where a lot of balls are going to be lost. The whole logistics of the Twenty/20 just isn’t going to work . . . you are going to lose a lot of balls, who is going to pay for these balls, at $50 or $60 a ball?”Last year Cann took on the role of coach at Warwick where they have a promising youth programme. Other than himself and Dwayne (Streaker) Adams, the team is made up of 14 to 19 year-olds.“With my young team I can get more out of a training session on a Tuesday and a Thursday than I could with entering a team in the T20,” said the veteran Bermuda batsman.“We’re at the development stage and I wasn’t going to put my team through that, and as you can see already no umpires showed up. I didn’t want to be a part of something that was going to hinder my players’ development.“It’s alright if you have two or three — and I do believe that T20 has a place for young players — but when you have nine or ten of them in a development stage, our thing is it is a waste of time. The average age of my team if you take out me and Dwayne Adams is 16 or 17.”The initial schedule released by the BCB had Warwick playing in a four-team group along with Southampton, Somerset and Somerset Bridge. Now the schedule for the two West groups has been revised.“If the cricket board is serious about development then things can be done a little better, like 20/20 on a weekend,” said Cann who was part of the St. David’s team that won the 20/20 tournament three years in a row.Cann was also critical of the newly introduced points system which will determined the season’s Most Valuable Player. He said that awarding points for all three disciplines of the game — batting, bowling and fielding — gives all-rounders a clear advantage in the calculating system which is updated weekly.“There are going to be three or four players who can win it and it has to be an all-rounder because obviously they can accumulate more points,” said Cann. He tips Malachi Jones, Dion Stovell, OJ Pitcher and Janeiro Tucker to be the main contenders, with Stovell (325), Pitcher (259) and Jones (258) presently occupying the top three spots in the tables.“ICC has a system where the man of the match gets three points, the runner-up gets two and third gets one and that keeps the points system close,” Cann believed. “You can see who is going to be on top from the first week. I can give you four names who are guaranteed to win it, no matter what their teams do, if you go by that points system.”