Derrick Brangman was never actually given out by umpire Kent Gibbons for his disputed dismissal which has resulted in a one-year suspension for the all-rounder.

The claim was made by Bailey’s Bay’s Stephen Outerbridge and Rodney Trott who have come out in support of their team-mate after he was handed the ban for refusing to walk after being caught off a full toss in a match against Western Stars on June 17. Brangman felt the full toss should have been called a no-ball and stood his ground for several minutes before the match was abandoned.

Gibbons, a stand-in, but experienced, umpire who has not officiated in a few of years, explained yesterday that it was Stars player Wayne Campbell, acting as the volunteer square leg umpire, who first pulled the stumps at the batsmen’s end.

Outerbridge and captain Trott, who was batting with Brangman at the time, both say that Gibbons never raised his finger to confirm the dismissal, something which Gibbons has acknowledged.

Bay are set to appeal the suspension imposed on Brangman while Trott, who was also charged, received a reprimand.

“As a team-mate and somebody who has played a lot of cricket, I feel that the Bermuda Cricket Board have overreacted once again,” Outerbridge said.

“There was a situation that presented itself on June 17, a batsman hasn’t been given out but he gets suspended because you have an umpire who hasn’t done a good enough job. We see this every Sunday and it’s the player who always seems to get penalised.

“In this situation the player is penalised for an umpire who didn’t make a decision. There is only one way you can be given out and that is by an umpire putting up his finger.

“It was a contentious delivery, the umpires would usually debate and then make a decision, but if a decision is never made how can you say that a batsman showed dissent?”

Outerbridge added: “I spoke to Kent Gibbons personally and asked him ‘did you give him out?’ and he said ‘no, I didn’t give him out’. If he had put up his finger, I would have stopped my argument.

“I’m for cricket and if he didn’t walk after being given out then I can’t support him. I represented Derrick [at the hearing] and thought I presented a strong case.

“I referred to laws and did research but I felt at the time that the person chairing the meeting [Ed Bailey] wasn’t too up to date with the rules and laws and he is a former president [of BCB].

“I went on the ICC website and even if he was found guilty of dissent, dissent only goes up to a level 2 [offence]. How is it that this man gets one year?”

Trott said he was uncertain of what he was being charged with when he showed up at the hearing last Thursday.

“In the meeting, they asked me why didn’t I take the initiative as captain to walk Derrick off the field,” Trott said. “I said that isn’t my decision to make if the umpire didn’t give him out. If the umpire gave Derrick out, I would have gone to him and told him he had to leave.

“Derrick’s deportment has been excellent over the last couple of years, no type of trouble. All this comes from him not being given out.”

Outerbridge recently returned to the Bermuda team after a five-year absence and played in the ICC World Cricket League Division Four tournament in Malaysia in May. Bermuda suffered relegation and Outerbridge believes the decline will continue if things do not change at the top.

“Cricket in Bermuda is never going to move forward if they don’t make severe changes and make them soon,” he warned. “Being a national squad player, a lot of players don’t have trust in the Board for a number of issues that are not reported.

“I told the president [Lloyd Smith], this is the reason why players don’t trust the Board. When it comes to making a conscious decision the Board is very poor at that. It doesn’t start with the players, it starts at the very top of the organisation. I love the game of cricket but I think we have people in position who are there for other reasons. The players are always targeted and there is no one to defend them. We want more from cricket but we’re asking the wrong people to start the change.

“You have a national team that continues to go down each division, there’s an uproar the week they get back but afterwards everybody goes quiet. There’s nothing in our programme that says we were going to compete with teams in Division Four.

“There is nothing that says we’re high performance, so we shouldn’t expect it. This is not a surprise to anybody who is around cricket.”

The pair spoke as they waited at Sea Breeze Oval for their match against St David’s to get started after a rain delay on Sunday. They were also without umpires.

“As we sit here today we have a massive game against St David’s and we can’t even get umpires,” Outerbridge said. “But then we’re supposed to get better.”

Trott said: “This is a big match, do you know how many people come out to watch St David’s and Bailey’s Bay?

“The players always get the backlash but somebody has to be responsible.”