Appeal Court overturns ruling by Supreme Court that players could play for both older league and newer league with shorter games and different rules
Article content
B.C.’s highest court has reversed a judge’s ruling ordering the province’s largest and oldest cricket league to drop its rule preventing players in a newer league from playing in both.
Article content
A B.C. Supreme Court judge had previously found that the 122-year-old B.C. Mainland Cricket League’s “Rule 10” doesn’t align with its mandate of promoting the sport in schools and among youth and adults.
Article content
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
Rule 10 states that if any Mainland Cricket League members play more than one game in an international league called Last Man Stands, which arrived in B.C. five years ago, they lose their membership in the older league.
Article content
Sunrise
Article content
But the B.C. Appeal Court found the lower court judge had erred by “not applying a holistic approach” to the interpretation of the league’s purposes.
Article content
The older league, which has 105 teams, plays by rules set by the International Cricket Council.
Article content
Last Man Stands, an amateur league with 260,000 members around the world, has shorter games that take two hours instead of a day or two. It also follows a different set of rules not recognized by the international council.
Article content
M. Emrul Hasann and Redowan-Ul-Islam Chowdhury, the franchise co-owners of Last Man Stands Canada, had argued the Mainland Cricket League’s Rule 10 contravenes the league’s own goals of trying to grow the sport. They argued the older league was violating the B.C. Societies Act and its own bylaws and constitution by forcing players to choose one league or the other.
Article content
Hasann said he brought Last Man Stands to B.C. five years ago to provide the sport’s enthusiasts who don’t have the time or skill to play the longer-version weekend games with a chance to play, and Rule 10 “stifles” cricket’s growth, skill development and player participation.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Maegen Giltrow agreed, saying Rule 10 was inconsistent with the older league’s purposes to “organize, foster, promote, improve, aid, extend and govern the playing of the game in schools and amongst the youth and adults” in B.C.
Article content
Read More
-
B.C. judge orders cricket association to drop rule against new league
-
‘Dysfunctional’ Cricket Canada embroiled in ego-driven civil wars, B.C. court says
-
Advertisement 1
Story continues below
Article content
But the appeal court said the lower court too narrowly defined the league’s purpose to foster the sport.
Article content
Justice Heather MacNaughton, who wrote the ruling for the three-judge appeal panel, said Giltrow erred in not acknowledging that “the game of cricket” referred to in the older league’s constitution is played according to the international rules it follows.
Article content
She said the traditional game of cricket is the one the older league “was incorporated to foster.”
Article content
The lower court judge didn’t properly refer to the game that conforms only to the International Cricket Council rules, the appeal court said, and instead referred to “all forms of cricket.”
Article content
MacNaughton said a league is entitled to regulate player eligibility and participation, including rules to “preserve competitive integrity,” and to play a certain type of game.
