In April 2007 Terry Holder, Public Relations Officer of the Guyana Cricket Board sent a letter to the Stabroek News concerning women’s cricket. He said:
“In response to your request for comments on the letter captioned ‘Guyana Cricket Board has sidelined women’s cricket’ I wish to state the following: the integration of women’s cricket into the mainstream of WI cricket was based on the mandate from the ICC for this to be effected by June 2005. With regards to Guyana, numerous meetings and discussions were held with the local women’s body after which it was decided that the GCB will absorb women’s cricket into its domestic cricket programme, with all affiliates being instructed to schedule women’s cricket as part of their annual itinerary.
“This did not progress as quickly as we expected and maybe is the cause for the type of concern indicated by the writer. Nevertheless, the Board is committed to the development of all crickets at every level and will do its best to promote and develop cricket with its mandate.
“For the record, Mr Editor, the Board since it has assumed responsibility for the organizing of women’s cricket has effected the following:
“1. Facilitated our women at the double-wicket tournament held in Trinidad during 2006.
“2. Initiated the playing of women’s cricket in schools during 2006 and allowed women cricketers to participate in GCB Board matches.
3. Placed women’s cricket as an agenda item for all of our monthly statutory meetings and there have been full discussions on the way forward.
4. Took a decision at the April statutory meeting not to send a team to the 2007 Senior WI Tournament since we feel enough groundwork has not been done and the women cricketers are not properly prepared. We will, however, participate in any upcoming junior women’s cricket tournament organized by the WI authorities.
“5. Scheduled our Inter-County Women’s Cricket Tournament for July/August this year.
“Maybe the writer is unaware of these facts or is otherwise deliberately misleading on the subject of women’s cricket, a relatively new area of cricket administration. The Board is convinced that there is the talent out there in urban and rural areas which needs to be identified, harnessed and developed in an organized manner. We believe that women’s cricket provides a great opportunity for young females to become actively involved in sport. What we need is the support of interested persons so that a reliable, meaningful, sustainable women’s cricket programme could be effected.”
At a dinner held in honour of the women’s cricket team that was taking part in the regional tournament last August it was announced that a Vice President of the GCB was appointed to supervise women’s cricket. We felt that our concerns about the development of women’s cricket were over, but we read nothing more about it until the Guyana Chronicle on February 9, 2009 published an article with the caption ‘Windies name Women’s World Cup squad.’ As was expected, no Guyanese women were on the team. They cannot qualify unless they are playing cricket matches throughout the year. We need to put pressure on the Board to take women’s cricket seriously and to ensure proper preparation for senior matches.
The West Indian women cricketers are scheduled to visit Australia in March to take part in the Women’s World Cup. The last Women’s World Cup was held in South Africa.
What we need now is a series of inter-country tournaments and then invite Ave Morgan to bring a team of Canadian women to Guyana.
There is a need for a woman in the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport to ensure that women and girls get their fair share of government funds that are available for sport.
