Dear Editor,
The Berbice Cricket Board has recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, even though, like all other boards of its kind it began as one of control. Obviously, however, it is in a much more democratic mode, involving, as it has, a plethora of non-cricketers as high officials.
Certainly I remember the board which was at one time dominated by Rex Ramnarace and company. It was the time before the establishment of community centres (and girls’ clubs) by the sugar industry (in the instant case, Bookers Sugar Estates) facilitated by the proceeds of the Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund.
As I recall, the New Amsterdam Mental Hospital Ground seemed to be the mecca of cricket, including inter-county cricket, which seemed to be founded on the familiar partnership of the redoubtable Minty and Plummer. Much later on successors of note emerged from Ithaca Village on the West Bank of the Berbice River, including Frank Dow, Charles Paul, Leslie Amsterdam, the latter two of whom made the trials lists for the national team. Leslie might even have been selected.
In my memory, however, a most dominating batsman was Joe Sukwah of Rose Hall Estate. He seemed to score at least a century in every match. He had an enormous appetite for runs and the stamina to go with it.
Nabby Hussain, alongside Daniel Adjodha, made his name locally as competent all-rounder for Blairmont. Later I saw the brilliant Moonsammy at Bourda. He electrified the crowd when his square cut sent one of Berkley Gaskin’s famous inswingers to the eastern cover boundary.
John Trim of course had his day, at home, regionally and for the West Indies in England.
Also in those memorably crimeless days the police cricket team was a real force to be reckoned with. Gravesande of Blairmont was amongst others who come to mind. Then came this confluence of great talent and potential, when with the heightened activity inspired by the provision of community centre grounds, gear, groundsmen and related equipment, coordinated by a Sugar Producers Association Committee under the invited leadership of Barbadian and retired West Indian Clyde Walcott, potential twinkled, and stars like Kanhai, Butcher, Solomon, swathed the canopy of the cricketing world with their brilliance, later followed (and matched) by Alvin Kallicharan – putting into pale candlelight the earlier exploits of Ivan Madray and others too numerous to mention, except one. This was Leonard Baichan, I think it was, who by sheer accident ceded his place in the national side to one Roy Fredericks, who went on to carve out his own glory.
Roy is a personal soft spot for me. Not many will remember that he first represented Guiana at table tennis. He subsequently transferred the swiftness of eye and subtleness of wrist, while batting at No 7 for the Blairmont Community Centre team which competed in the Davson First Division Cricket in Berbice. As a No 11 member of the team, I had ample opportunity to witness with amazement the strokes he would create – out of sheer instinct, as Roy had never seen a first class match outside of Berbice up to that point in time. It just had to be genius, when matched with the nimbleness of feet.
He had not yet been selected to represent Berbice County, so when as young Personnel Manager, Blairmont Estate, I pleaded with colleague Advisor Clyde Walcott to use his influence to select Roy for the ongoing trials, he made the valid point of his Berbician non-representation. I countered that there was no time to wait and nothing to lose by exposing him then. Walcott reluctantly agreed to my anxious offer to fund Roy’s stay in Georgetown during his ‘call up.’ To everyone’s astonishment, Roy found Bourda to his liking on his first trip to Georgetown, and scored a maiden trial century. When he repeated the feat in the next trial neither Walcott nor onlookers needed further convincing.
With the estate humanely finding him work on SILWF projects in the Blairmont Extra Nuclear Housing Areas, Roy was sufficiently reinforced to blossom, but not enough to make the national side. Preference was given to one Steve Camacho, an opening batsman. As the story went, however, Steve fell ill and when it was found that the productive Leonard Baichan, the selectors’ preferred replacement, had departed back to Berbice in disappointment, Roy Fredericks was found at his mother’s bedside at the Public Hospital Georgetown, and required to open the batting the very morning, facing a new ball for the first time in his career. He made an appreciated thirty-three runs against a rampant Barbadian side, led by an aggressive Gary Sobers.
His performance in that regional tournament earned him a place as opening batsman on the West Indies next tour to Australia. Incidentally, he made a maiden tour century in the first match against Tasmania.
Finally, may I say his counterpart Baichan never did get a fair deal: dropped from the West Indies team after making a century, an impossible task for current sides. He must be saluted amongst the Berbician greats.
We should also remember Robert Christiani who, while Assistant Personnel Manager at Albion was on the ground coaching that trio which made Albion/Port Mourant as famous as it is today – the pavilion constructed by a local contractor (name regrettably forgotten) to accommodate as big a crowd as Bourda in those times.
But the story is not only about players. After all there was a board (of control) at the helm. There was a time when it was led by no less a cricketer than Chetram Singh, a highly qualified administrator of New Amsterdam Hospital. With Chetram as President, Blairmont Community Centre Club ushered, and got me accepted, as Vice President.
Amongst other things, Chetram and I agreed with our colleagues’ approval to push for a major breakthrough in our relationship with the national board; that is for Berbice selectees for national trials to be susbidised in the same way those in Demerara were by the British Guiana Cricket Board of Control. We insisted that there had to be an end to the discrimination if our players were to participate. It was a brave front, knowing that we were in fact putting players’ careers at stake. On the other hand our combination of talents could not be so easily ignored. In the end, after a standoff period Georgetown relented and Berbice players of course went on to justify their keep.
By now, indications are that the board is in a better financial position than its predecessor was then.
This then is a hearty toast to the Berbice Cricket Board.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
