– after four years in wilderness
President of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetram Singh says that the Guyana senior women’s cricket team put in a creditable performance in St. Lucia recently.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport, Singh said that for a team that “did not take part in any regional cricket for over four years they put in an impressive performance.”
Singh said that out of the six games that Guyana played they went down to eventual champion Jamaica, defending champion and second place finisher Trinidad and Tobago and third place Barbados while recording three victories for a 50/50 record.
“I think it was an achievement on the part of the girls having been in the cricket wilderness for an extended period of time,” Singh.
He added that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has now mandated every area board to take over the running of women’s cricket which fell under the auspices of the West Indies Cricket Federation (WICF).
The running of women’s cricket will now fall directly under the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
According to Singh the WICB has passed on the responsibility to the respective boards that fall under the WICB; therefore the GCB is responsible for spreading the game locally and this, Singh said, was what they intend to do.
“We are making every effort to put women’s cricket back on the local map,” Singh said, adding that the women who represented Guyana should be praised as they were individual performances that stood out.
Spreading the game
The GCB has put aside a sum of money to spread the game locally and an inter-county competition as well as an under-19 competition will soon come on stream.
The lead up to the inter-county competition should see the advent of more club cricket in the three counties and this will be used as a prerequisite to select the teams that will contest the inter-county competition.
These tournaments are being fashioned after those that are played by the men and the hope is to have the best team selected.
Singh said that come 2009, the women should improve on their recent performance, noting the input that is being made in the women’s form of the game. The 2008 team was captained by all-rounder Zaheeda Samdally, coached by Michael Hayes and managed by Maylene Ramdhular.
In the eight-team tournament held recently in Castries, St. Lucia, Jamaica came out first with 17 points followed by Trinidad and Tobago on 14, Barbados 13, host St. Lucia 12, Guyana 10, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 9, Grenada 4 and Dominica 0.
The competition according to officials could have been closer had it not been for the rains and sloppy condition at the playing venues which caused an almost unplayable final round.
This caused those teams that were closest to Jamaica to just watch in despair as their chances were washed away.