By Orin Davidson
A new standard of ineptitude by sports administrators was set by the actions of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) vice president and his faction last Saturday.
Bissoondyal Singh and his cohorts obviously thought it was a splendid idea to air dirty laundry by making the rift within the board public, at that specially arranged media conference.
But their meeting with journalists merely showcased an obsession for authority and shallow thinking by this particular faction which did nothing more than create a huge embarrassment for the Guyana cricket fraternity.
On the eve of the national team’s departure for its biggest assignment ever at the Airtel Champions League competition, the eyes of the Region, who the team will represent, are on Guyana, and Bissoondyal Singh and company obliged with a crude and unprofessional display that told everyone about the sordid state of sports administration in Guyana.
In this day and age you would not associate the faction’s actions with officials involved in the running of the most prestigious of the country’s sports disciplines.
The behavior mirrored the apathy that afflicts many other of Guyana’s sports disciplines where opportunists masquerade as administrators within national governing associations.
In using the occasion three days before the national team flew out to South Africa, to criticize the GCB president, disagree with vital board decisions and lambast the West Indies Cricket Board, the faction gave a public display of self serving motives that should backfire in its face.
Such an act would hardly inspire unity and peace among the team players, who already have the huge burden of attuning their minds on not being intimidated in facing the world’s best players in alien, challenging conditions.
But the vice president’s faction obviously does not care about that.
It was all about them so they seized the opportunity to bathe in the spotlight in an attempt to score cheap points.
In his outburst Singh, erroneously interpreted the WICB’s decision to cut national captain Ramnaresh Sarwan’s retainer contract for his inability to maintain acceptable physical fitness by the board’s standard.
There is a big difference between the fitness of attaining stamina and strong muscles, compared to lack of fitness through injury or illness, in the said context.
But the WICB’s explanation went way over the vice president’s head as he went on a rampage, slamming the WICB board by claiming that Sarwan was penalized for being sick.
The WICB is not the world’s best run sports organization and blundered its corrective measures policy by completely cutting the contracts of Sarwan and other senior West Indies players Jerome Taylor and Dinesh Ramdin.
A better decision would have been to reduce the players’ wages with a smaller contract instead, if they failed to get fit despite warnings.
It is clearly a travesty for a player of Sarwan’s calibre whose accomplishments amount to 5759 Test and 5098 ODI runs respectively being cut while Devon Smith with 1315 and 681 runs to his name was contracted
The WICB clearly had nothing else in mind but to give the players a wakeup call, albeit a clumsy attempt.
But Singh who also feels that Guyanese Narsingh Deonarine, who was also cited for lack of fitness and Travis Dowlin should’ve been signed, exposed the insular mentality that has bedeviled West Indies cricket, by claiming that the WICB’s decision was a national ‘eye pass” among other fallacies.
The vice president’s thinly veiled attack on the Guyana representatives on the WICB who happen to be President Chetram Singh and Secretary Anand Sanasie was wholly out of order coming as it did at a media conference.
And he also doesn’t seem to understand his position on the GCB following his condemnation of its injunction filed against the West Indies Players Association (WIPA).
“I don’t know about ever giving instructions to take anybody to court”, thundered the vice president who obviously was confusing his position as president of the East Coast Board with his GCB post.
If anyone is empowered to give ‘instructions’ it has to the GCB president in this case.
There was also the issue of former West Indies player and Coach Roger Harper not accompanying the Guyana team to South Africa after helping with its preparations, an issue that was conveniently raised by the faction.
Harper clearly is the best man to be in charge of the Guyana squad, but no one heard from this disgruntled faction on the need for his services after the 2009 and 2010 regional competitions when the national team finished at the bottom of the points table.
If Bissoondyal Singh and his faction are as outraged as they seem at board decisions, surely the decent approach would be to air differences and seek solutions in the privacy of GCB meetings.
If differences cannot be resolved as a result, then those disenchanted faction members should do as any professional would do and resign.
For all his experience and accomplishments as an administrator it was disappointing that chief national team selector and former Malteenoes club president, Claude Raphael, decided to show up at the press conference as part of the faction.
Also assistant secretary of the GCB, Ronald Williams, who has done yeoman service at the Everest Cricket Club.
If it was a media conference announcing the resignation of disgruntled officials, the GCB’s image would’ve been less tarnished than it already is, given its laundry list of woes.
