B>The following statement was released by St. David's County Cricket Club yesterday explaining their absence from this year's Eastern Counties Cup series:

Dear Eastern Counties cricket fans,

The membership and executive of the St. David's County Cricket Club (St DCCC) regret to inform you that our Eastern Counties senior cricket team will not participate in this year's Eastern County Cricket Series.

This was not a decision that was made by us. St DCCC was excluded from this year's series by the executive of the Eastern Counties Cricket Association (ECCA) in a letter to St DCCC at the end of last month. On Friday, 8 July, 2011, the decision to make this public announcement was made by St DCCC after a meeting of its executive and membership to discuss the ECCA's treatment of our club with respect to this year's Eastern County cricket series.

There have been a number of comments made in the press in recent weeks, none of which have been attributed to the executive or the membership of St DCCC.

St DCCC has chosen to treat our current standing within the ECCA with the utmost care and respect, at all times preferring to address any grievances with the ECCA through official channels rather than involving the media. Our silence was an attempt to avoid a repeat of the media spectacle that surrounded last year's Eastern County cricket series. However, given the swirl of speculation surrounding the reasons behind the decision for St DCCC not participating in this year's series, the executive and membership of the St DCCC believe it is appropriate to set the record straight.

Our primary intention after the 2010 Eastern County cricket series was to show our eagerness to rectify our mounting concerns with the governance of the ECCA and the running of the Eastern County series. We wanted this historic series to continue, so St DCCC reinstated our representatives to the ECCA and became willing participants in all negotiations and mediation efforts throughout the off season.

Our president agreed a hosting agreement with the other three member clubs' presidents along with an ECCA appointed mediator. On the 14th April, 2011, two days after this agreement was signed, the ECCA sanctioned St DCCC at an ECCA general meeting as punishment for our boycott of the 2010 series. The ECCA decided that St DCCC should be placed on two years probation, be docked 15 per cent of the monies due to us from this year's series, be automatically placed in the last game of the series (removing any chance of us fairly competing for the title) and be made to publicly apologise for the 2010 boycott.

In order to lawfully sanction a member of any association, there must be express rules within that association's constitution and/or bye-laws providing a power to do so. There are no rules within the ECCA constitution or its bye-laws that provide such a power. The decision by the ECCA to impose these sanctions was, therefore unconstitutional.

Article 6 (a) of the ECCA bye-laws states: “Any matter which requires disciplinary action by the Association shall be dealt with within 14 days of the incident.” The sanctions imposed on St DCCC were meted out nearly nine months after the boycott.

St DCCC believes that the ECCA abused their powers and distorted their constitution and bye-laws in order to levy these sanctions against us. We feel that these sanctions are an attempt to publicly embarrass St DCCC, financially penalise us and deny our team a fair chance to battle for the County Cup title. They have nothing to do with protecting the reputation of the game of cricket.

At an appeals hearing, St DCCC argued that the sanctions were unconstitutional. We informed the board that the ECCA appointed mediator rejected the ECCA's request for punishments for St DCCC during the binding presidential mediation. The mediator notified the ECCA and club presidents of her objection to these sanctions after learning of the 14th April, 2011 meeting.

We also argued that the ECCA never officially informed St DCCC of the sanctions, we learned of them by receiving minutes of the 14th April, 2011 meeting. The ECCA appointed appeals board upheld all sanctions except the 15 per cent financial penalty.

St DCCC executives have made all attempts to deal with this matter in a reasonable way. We objected to the ECCA rulings, but we worked within their protocol of appeal in order defend our club against the sanctions. As a last resort, St DCCC sought legal advice on these issues. Our lawyers advised that the sanctions imposed by the ECCA were without jurisdiction and would likely be void, also that the ECCA's ad hoc appeals committee decisions would consequently be void due to the ECCA's original lack of jurisdiction to impose sanctions.

Put bluntly, the ECCA did not play by their own rules when they decided to sanction St DCCC. Armed with this advice, St DCCC wrote to the ECCA informing them that we would play the 2011 series under protest and asking them to remove the sanctions.

The ECCA fired back stating that “the (ECCA) will be moving forward without (St DCCC's) participation in the 2011 series”.

There is no express power within the ECCA constitution which allows the ECCA to remove a member club from the Eastern County cricket series. The ECCA have not played by the rules again.

St DCCC have received clear legal advice that as a result of the ECCA's decision, we are within our rights to seek declarations from the Supreme Court that the sanctions imposed by the Association are void and without jurisdiction as well as injunctive relief requiring the Association to take such steps to place St DCCC in the position it would have been in had these wrong decisions not been made.

However, in the spirit and heritage of the Eastern County cricket series and in an effort to promote unity and the betterment of the sport, the executive and membership of St DCCC voted not to take legal action at our meeting on 8 July, 2011. Rather, we decided to invite the ECCA to reconsider its position with regard to the sanctioning of St DCCC in this same spirit and to give us confirmation that it no longer seeks to uphold those sanctions as they are plainly unconstitutional. The ECCA have refused to reconsider the sanctions and stand by their decision.

St. David's CCC holds the Eastern County Cup series in high regard and it is for this reason that we have not sought and do not seek any interruptions (by legal intervention or otherwise) to this year's series.

We will not challenge the decision of the ECCA at this time because we no longer have faith in the ECCA as a fair and unbiased governing body. We cannot accept an association that 'cherry picks' constitutional bye-laws to enforce punishments, but operates in contravention of many specific articles within the very same document.

It is our full intention to help to improve the ECCA before next year's series. We have supplied the ECCA and all member clubs with a preliminary proposal for a restructured governing body that will give all member clubs an equal voice within the association.

We appreciate the history of the game and we continue to teach our juniors the pride and heritage behind this historic tournament. We would like to congratulate Cleveland County for their triumph in the 2010 series and wish them as well as Flatts Victoria and Bailey's Bay all the best in their pursuit of the 2011 County Cup title.

St. David's County Cricket Club