The Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) has responded to the rebuttal made by acting chairman of the national selection panel and national coach Albert Smith, by asking Smith to explain where and when their chairman of selectors were invited to the selection meeting.

Smith had earlier responded to claims by president of the DCB Bissoondial Singh who stated that the DCB were not a part of the selection committee that was responsible for the selecting of the 42 players (later changed to 48), who participated in the just concluded Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) President Cup competition. The full excerpt of the DCB response to Smith rebuttal read:

Albert Smith

The Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) welcomes the response of Mr. Albert Smith on its release pertaining to the exclusion of the DCB’s Selector from the selection of the players for the President’s Cup Competition, which replaced the annual inter county tournament.

This response of Mr. Smith is however woefully lacking and misguiding, as it has not yet explained in what way the DCB’s selector was allowed a fair chance of participating in the selection of these players. This is what Mr. Smith claimed in the October 28 edition of the Stabroek News “The facts are that on October 3, 2008 at the Providence Stadium, I was advised by the president of the Guyana Cricket Board, in the presence of Mr. Lennox Hunte, to inform all the Counties Chairmen of Selectors, of a meeting to select the forty two (42) players for the competition.

“There was clearly no attempt to deny the DCB its legitimate right and the senior selector from the county was indeed invited to participate in the selection process.”

This was meant to explain how our selector was involved an explanation we are still waiting as there is no mention of when or how our selector was invited, who were present at the meeting on selection day or any defence of the methodology used. These are the objective matters that concern the DCB onto this day.

Mr. Smith in his release then moved away from these objective issues and went off on a tangent to launch an ad hominem attack on our president Bissoondial Singh.

He stated, “It seems as if problems internal to the DCB, which Mr. Singh would be aware of, prevented that Board’s effective participation. It worries me that there are persons, too impatient to take over its administration, who pretend to have an interest, but who would prefer to cause embarrassment through mis-information, even if it means the loss of the public’s confidence.

The Demerara Cricket Board is appalled at the lack of objectivity that Mr. Smith has demonstrated in this response. The DCB leaves the cricket loving public to be the judge and would like to invite Mr. Smith to view some of the response to his article from the enlightened Guyanese public on the Stabroek News website.