Dear Editor,
The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) saga has its genesis in the desire and aspirations of a few individuals to dominate and take control of the GCB for their own personal purposes rather than for the purpose of developing cricket.
The GCB is composed of three members – Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo – and according to its constitution each member is entitled to nine delegates at the Annual General Meeting which elects the Executive Committee to manage its operations for two years. The Executive Committee of 2009 comprised 13 members of which seven constituted a majority and quorum for the decision-making process. It was readily observed by the majority of executive members that the signature executives were deliberately violating the rules by making decisions on their own and/or ignoring decisions which had been made by the majority of executives and the general members meeting with regard to financial and administrative matters.
Time after time those concerns were either raised at meetings, or committed to paper, but to no avail. The Board was in effect taken over by the President, Secretary, Treasurer, Vice President, PRO and Marketing Manager, who represented a minority 6 of the 13 member executive. Ironically the VP and Treasurer who had initially expressed their support of the seven member majority, signed a 25-point list of concerns tabled at the executive meeting held on November 13 2009. They however surprisingly and suddenly disclaimed involvement one week later.
This entire period of lawlessness was in the public domain and information about it was even sent to the directorship of the WICB, which completely ignored the complaints, with a response coming from only one WICB director who said it was totally an internal affair and they were not concerned with Guyana’s cricket problems.
The very WICB that is now proclaiming its recognition of only the GCB has been guilty of ignoring the GCB when it mattered most, thereby losing opportunities which could have resolved the entire mess earlier. It is surprising that no efforts were made by the WICB to resolve the matter at the GCB level, especially since the charges were made by the majority of GCB executive members along with more than 50% of the GCB’s membership – in other words, the cream of Guyana’s cricket administration.
It is as a consequence of the WICB’s indifference to our ‘internal affairs’ at the GCB that the government was requested by the majority of members and executives to intervene in an effort to resolve the issues within a short specified time-frame, and place our cricket back on track. This was done in good faith with the best intentions in mind, but at that stage the WICB suddenly came to life throwing all its bombs at the government and in the process devastating our cricketing operations.
What was shameful was the fact that Guyana had the privilege of Chetram Singh, Anand Sanasie, Clifford Reis, Ramsey Alli and Clive Lloyd sitting as Directors of WICB during this period of the destruction of our cricketing programmes by the WICB. Except for Mr Lloyd, what role did Guyana’s representatives play? No other director has been recorded as saying or doing anything in support of our cause, a really sad state of affairs, especially when the great and powerful WICB decided to withdraw the Australian Test and other cricket matches arranged for our country and place them in another territory. The ugly face of arrogance, insularity and selfishness surfaced in the most despicable way, without any query or enquiry as to the accuracy of the reports on financial and administrative malpractices and fraudulent elections, while our esteemed directors remained silent and the so-called ‘brother’ country gleefully accepted.
It is most surprising that these acts were perpetrated even though the government by its actions had permitted the so-called GCB to field representative teams as stipulated by the WICB, showing its willingness to understand the dynamics of compromise under the threat of an unyielding WICB.
The Guyana members of the WICB directorship must answer to the people of Guyana on the question of their involvement in the banning of cricket from Guyana. This is a national issue and not a political one, so all Guyanese must take a position of finding out their role in the process, so as to ascertain the quality of their representation and the basis of its future.
One has to only look at the quick and successful response of the WICB to the intervention, yes, ‘intervention‘ of the Jamaican government, where Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller in the Chris Gayle matter intervened, and when the Jamaican reps in the WICB supported their Prime Minister on the issue. So why the power drunk imposition on Guyana?
We cannot allow the WICB with its so called concern for the ‘non-intervention of government‘ to destroy our cricket, when such a position is unfounded and penalises the cricketing public in the process. Let our voices be heard loud and clear.
The mighty ICC has always displayed maturity, good sense and tolerance in dealing with its members who are in any way violating the same rule, so why is the WICB so unbending and draconian in deliberately destroying the efforts of Guyana, a member that has done so much for cricket in the Caribbean over the years. Are we being indirectly advised to shift our allegiance to South America and remove all connections to the Caribbean? This seems to be what the regional body is indicating since not a word of support has been forthcoming from any of our so-called Caribbean brothers at this time of our trials. With five doctors and an array of experience on the WICB one would expect better judgment and decision-making, so at least there would be an arrangement for an enquiry or investigation, and a genuine attempt to resolve the problem in the interest of unity in West Indies cricket.
Maybe that is why our cricket languishes at the bottom rung of the grading ladder and why the WICB has continually lost out in its negotiations with WIPA. Or maybe it is in their own self interest that the WICB directorship prefers the present crop of GCB directors who are more concerned with the status quo than to respect and represent the wider interest of Guyana’s cricket and its sovereignty.
We are at the crossroads, and as a people we must decide now on the way forward, by taking the appropriate action, especially since it is obvious that the government cannot do it alone. Total involvement is the only way, or our cricket is doomed.
Yours faithfully,
Claude Raphael
