The Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) has issued a response to the allegations levied against it by the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA), as regards the Travis Dowlin resigning as captain of the Demerara team and Roderick Lovell being asked to be excused from the selection meeting.
Below is the full script of the DCB’s response, which is less than 24 hours after the GCA, held a media briefing on the issue at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) pavillion.
The Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) is confident that the fourteen-man squad selected for the Pepsi/Carib Inter County Twenty20 final to be played tomorrow, will perform exceptional and this County will retain the Twenty20 Title.
This is despite the lack of co-operation from the captain select Travis Dowlin and the efforts of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) to damage the morale of this bunch of talented cricketers selected.
The Board will like to publicly admit that Dowlin, a national cricketer, has not been the least responsible to the team selected nor the cricket loving fans of Demerara who have followed his career and celebrated his achievements over the years.
Mr. Dowlin owes the younger players of this squad selected and this mighty county an apology for his unbecoming behavior as a captain selected.
At the last minute he declined captaincy when Demerara played Berbice at Blairmount on November 29. At the last minute the following day, he withdrew himself from the team against Essequibo in a match that everyone knows was critical.
If Demerara did not reach the final at the Stadium, it is not Dowlin that would have lost but all his fellow players and fans in Demerara that have put their resources and hearts to this game.
As it regards the GCA, the DCB will like the cricket loving public and players of Georgetown to know that it is Mr. Roderick Lovell who lobbied for the exclusion of Ravi Sarwan, Shemroy Barrington, Steven Jacobs and Rajendra Chandrika, all players of Georgetown to be excluded from the team.
In addition, Mr. Panday’s assertions that the selection panel is not credible are ludicrous since the panel is in keeping with the constitutional requirement of a member from each sub-association and a chairman selected by the DCB. As a matter of fact this is perhaps the first time that an honest attempt was made to involve all the selectors.
These players were selected in a manner that justifies the DCB’s intended selection methodology. The methodology used was democratic, transparent, fair and accountable.
The public should be mindful of this attempt by the GCA to smear the image of the DCB and cricket in Guyana as a whole to promote its own agenda of gaining independence at the Guyana Cricket Board level.
In concluding, the DCB is asking the players selected for tomorrow’s game not to be distracted by the attempts of those who are hinging their success on the failure of the Demerara Cricket Team.
The DCB invites all Guyana to the National Stadium as we rally around the Demerara Team to their second consecutive Inter-County Twenty20 title.
