Chairman of the Big Man Cricket (BMC) committee, Raj Singh, said yesterday that the tournament will go ahead as planned as they do not need permission from the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB).
Singh made the disclosure yesterday during a press conference at the Oasis Café, Carmichael Street.
The GCB recently issued a notice saying that the tournament was not sanctioned by them.
However Singh is contending that the tournament will go on in spite of the notice, citing a five-page legal opinion which suggests that no approval is required from the GCB.
“We did not ask for their permission to host this tournament but that’s their position. We’ve gotten legal opinion from our attorneys who will be at our launching. We’ve got a full five-page legal opinion which I sent to the board which they chose to ignore that says we don’t need permission because this is not a form of cricket they are responsible for,” Singh declared.
He asked, “Why is it the Guyana Cricket Board does not sanction softball cricket? “They’ve chosen not to administer softball cricket, they’ve chosen not to represent Masters Cricket, so this is a void we are filling. Basically they should be happy to have us do this. This is not an ICC [International Cricket Council] event, this is a private event.”
The chairman revealed that the private venture is not funded by the ICC, Cricket West Indies nor the GCB and is not interfering with their players or officials.
Singh explained that the tournament is an over-45 event and will be a 25-over affair which will run from Saturday until April 18 in a round-robin format with the final tentatively set for the Guyana National Stadium, Providence or the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground.
Eight teams are set to take part in the inaugural event which bowls off Saturday across three venues nationwide.
“The tournament is going to begin on Saturday and run countrywide. We are going to have two matches at GCC this weekend. We have matches at Enmore [Community Centre Ground] and one at Imam Bacchus ground in Essequibo so the full fixtures will be released shortly,” Singh told reporters. In addition to the three grounds, Farm Ground, East Bank Demerara, Meet-en-Meer-Zorg Ground, West Demerara, Jai Hind Ground and No.72 Ground, will also be used. Two teams from Essequibo, West Demerara, Georgetown and Berbice will be taking part.
Singh noted that the winning team will pocket $400,000 while the second placed team will cart off $250,000.
“Right now we have eight teams registered and this tournament will be used as a yardstick to select the Guyana for the regional tournament in October of this year,” said Singh.
He added, “The October regional tournament will be used to select the West Indies regional team to represent West Indies in the South Africa World Cup in March 2022.”
Singh acknowledged that the tournament was originally billed for last year but due to the pandemic, was postponed.
However, the delay served as an advantage for the organisers who got the extra time to tighten loose ends.
Singh explained “It’s really earmarked for the Masters in our society to come out and be active again, live healthy lifestyles, wanting them to get back into clubs, serve as role models for the youths in different communities and even start helping with umpiring, scoring and being part of the administration of the clubs because we really need to have the clubs developed back in the country to have our entire structure stronger.”
