Guyana cricket cannot be put on a legal footing with the GCB and DCB as they are presently constituted

Dear Editor,
I read Intikhab Sankar’s letter (‘The Parliamentary Select Committee on the cricket administration Bill has failed to fulfil its mandate,’SN, August 10) which is essentially an attempt to discredit the work of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on the enactment of laws for the orderly administration of our cricket.  Mr Sankar is a close associate of Mr Anand Sanasie, the Secretary of the illegal Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and the Vice-President of the illegal Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) and it is very obvious that the attack on the parliamentary process is designed to protect the officers of the DCB and the GCB.

Mr Sankar and his associates have all been elected to office by only the Essequibo Cricket Board. This is clearly unconstitutional since it requires at least two of the three Boards affiliated to the GCB to form a quorum. They are totally averse to any attempt at restoring order to our beloved cricket while professing that they are interested in a resolution. Evidently, they are content with the present situation.

It smacks of indecency when Nazeer Mohamed, Verendra Chintamani and Alvin Johnson of Essequibo and David Black and Carol Nurse of West Berbice have been appointed to manage our national teams, ostensibly as a trade-off for their loyalty to the GCB.

To suggest that the persons opposed to the GCB and DCB are a “disgruntled group” is both ludicrous and misleading, as this group is made up of and represented by the following:

1. The Berbice Cricket Board: this is constitutionally one-third of the GCB and is led by properly-elected officials including Keith Foster, Anil Beharry, Hubern Evans and Angela Hanif. This Board, over the years, has been producing many Test and national players at all levels.

2. The East Coast Cricket Board: this is one of the four constituent members of the DCB and is led by a properly-elected executive which includes Bissoondyal Singh, Pretipaul Jaigobin, Raymond Barton, Davteerth Anandjit, Essie Peters and Samaroo Jailall. This Board, over the years, has been producing national players at all levels.
3. Georgetown Cricket Association: this is also one of the four constituent members of the DCB and is led by a properly-elected executive which includes Roger Harper, Neil Barry Azad Ibrahim, Reon King, Debbie McNicholls and Harry Parmessar. This association, over the years, has been producing many Test and national players at all levels.

It is instructive to note that the officials of these Boards /Associations are persons of unquestionable character and integrity with a proven background of playing and administering cricket at very high levels. The three named areas constitute ninety-five per cent of the strength of Guyana cricket. With the clear exception of two cricketers from Essequibo (none from West Demerara or East Bank Demerara where Raj Singh/Anand Sanasie control cricket) every Test and senior national cricketer has been produced by Berbice, East Coast and Georgetown.

Regarding the voter allocation issue within the DCB, the late Justice Aubrey Bishop in 2003 in auditing the clubs in Demerara prudently removed phantom clubs from the West Demerara and East Bank Demerara areas to facilitate a fair electoral process. The very West Demerara and East Bank Demerara are ten years later attempting this very charade of phantom clubs to secure a stranglehold on Demerara cricket and this has once again attracted the attention of the court.

It is against this background that these three progressive cricket areas support the parliamentary process which seeks to permanently resolve the voter allocation problem through the introduction of a Cricket Ombudsman and a club verification process. Mr Sankar refers to this noble intent as interference.  No right-thinking cricket stakeholder should oppose a process that seeks to establish fair play and transparency in our cricket.

Mr Sankar attacked the Limacol CPL which is owned by a Guyanese without understanding the positive effects the LCPL can have on our cricket development and on spectatorship. Further, in referring to the successful Pakistan tour he failed to mention that not one Guyanese was selected on the West Indies team for the five ODIs played. The lack of ability of this GCB to identify, develop and select talented cricketers is evident in the extremely poor performance and results of our national teams at all levels.

Guyana cricket cannot be legalized with the GCB and the DCB as they are presently constituted.  Mr Sankar is clearly out of his depth on real cricket issues and his letter is a clear indication that he does not understand or will not accept the principle that any entity that is a product of an illegality is doomed to fail.

When that entity is as important to the nation as the Guyana Cricket Board (or the Demerara Cricket Board) it must be legally and properly constituted in order to carry out its mandate, to function effectively and to enjoy the confidence and support of all cricket stakeholders.
Yours faithfully,
Winston G Boston