President of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) Bishwa Panday says the body has made progress in the areas of competitions and finance.
Panday told Stabroek Sports recently that the GCA had an excellent year as they were able to complete the two competitions that were held over from 2007 while last year, the GCA started and completed four competitions.
In the area of finance, Panday disclosed that the GCA had in excess of $1.3M in its coffers as against the $300,000 when he took over as president.
Competitions
The competitions that were held in 2008 included the Pepsi first-division limited-overs tournament; the Edward B. Beharry Champion Cup second-division tournament; an U-19 tournament for clubs and schools and the Lifetime Realty U-15 tournament.
The Pepsi limited-overs tournament was played on a league basis and won by the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC).
The Demerara Cricket Club also won the Edward B. Beharry Champion Cup second- division competition by defeating Transport Sports Club in the final.
Everest Cricket Club won the U-19 tournament for club schools after defeating Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) in the final played at the DCC ground.
Panday said the Steve’s Jewellery Over-40 competition, which started in 2007, was presently being held up by the current rainy weather.
The two finalists are Malteenoes Cricket Club (MCC) and GNIC while the Busta second-division 20/20 competition has progressed to the semi-finals stage,
Teams to contest the semi-finals are GCC, DCC Transport and Harbours Sports Club and Malteenoes Cricket Club.
Panday said when he took over the presidency of the GCA on June 1, 2007 there were eight competitions.
Six of those competitions have now been completed.
Cricket was played from the U-15 level to the Over-40 level with all of the competition either being played in a round robin basis or league format.
According to Panday, the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) did not host an U-19 competition in 2008.
Panday said the GCA’s hard work paid off when the recent national U-17 team to Trinidad and Tobago consisted of eight Georgetown players.
The GCA also contributed to spreading the game in schools as six fully loaded cricket kits costing almost $900,000 were handed over to selected schools.
Those schools receiving kits were St. Stanislaus College, School of the Nations, Cummings Lodge Secondary, St. Winifred’s Secondary, Christ Church Secondary and Richard Ishmael Secondary.
“School cricket is extremely important for the development of the game,” Panday declared.
The GCA president said that some $855,000 was paid as none of the clubs were allowed to pay umpires fees to participate in any of the GCA-run competitions.
This, he declared, was a first in the history of the GCA.
The Georgetown Cricket Umpires Association was also the recipient of three dozen Polo T-shirts while the GCA participated in the DCB’s Hand-in-Hand knock out competition and in Guyana Cricket Board-sanctioned competitions like the Neal and Massy and the Gafoors 20/20 competitions.
Panday said that the GCA was not dependant on GCB and DCB competitions but ran off eight competitions of their own in the last eighteen months.
With respect to the competitions completed so far over $600,000 was paid out.
Cost for balls for the clubs was also offset by the GCA who spent $350,000 to purchase balls to help the clubs participate in the respective competitions.