Less than a month after being elected to the helm of Cricket West Indies (CWI), President Ricky Skerritt described the landscape in Guyana as it relates to regional cricket as “troubling.”
Skerritt was speaking at what was described as the first of the new standard for media relations when CWI hosted a news conference that was streamed live from their headquarters in Antigua yesterday.
The CWI President responded to questions relating to the recent High Court ruling that deemed the Executives of the Guyana Cricket Board illegal. “Obviously the Guyana situation is troubling, it’s a little awkward and, at the moment, riddled with uncertainty,” he said.
It had been suggested that the participation of the National Under 15 boys team in the upcoming CWI U15 Regional championships would have fallen casualty to the ruling but Skerritt emphasised the importance of ensuring Guyana teams are involved in these tournaments. The team left for Antigua yesterday.
“At our board meeting on Tuesday, it was made clear that we would continue to welcome Guyana’s aged teams and we will do whatever we can to get the Guyana cricket teams involved in our cricket,” he said while indicating that “we have officials from the Antiguan Cricket Association, who, from this week, (will be) hosting the West Indies U15 Championships with teams arriving today and fortunately the Guyana U15 is one of those teams.”
The CWI President maintained that the details surrounding the legal judgement remains unclear at this point, but a deadline – which he did not disclose – has been set for it to be clarified and necessary steps sought for a way forward.
“As soon as we can get more details on the actual legal judgement without, in any way, interfering or being in contempt of court, we will do everything we can to facilitate youth development through cricket, but we will take it on advisement and at one step at a time. We are setting a deadline where we will need clarity, that deadline is still a bit away,” Skerritt said.
The former West Indies manager spoke of the love for cricket in Guyana, saying, “the people of Guyana and cricket lovers in Guyana…no matter who disagree politically or have competitiveness economically or whatever, everybody loves cricket, so our job is to make sure cricket continues where ever we can in the interest of West Indies Cricket.”
Skerritt reiterated that the situation in the territory that has produced the five-time consecutive CWI Regional 4-day champions needs to be sorted out swiftly and CWI will do whatever they can to assist.
