Our opinion

The Guyana cricket team continued its poor showing yesterday. Responding to Barbados’ first innings score of 403 all-out Guyana were 189-7 at the close.

The performance is in no way surprising.

It is not that the cricketers are not doing their best. It’s just that their best is not good enough.

This is the second successive year that the Guyana team is performing so poorly in the regional four-day competition and even if the team is missing some of its stronger players, Guyanese, weaned on the glory days of the Kanhais, Kallicharrans and Lloyds, are finding it difficult to swallow.

What is more upsetting though is the lack of government attention to the fact that cricket, our national sport, has hit rock bottom and begs for some sort of remedial action.

The president of the Guyana Cricket Board, the national coach, the manager of the national team and even legendary West Indies cricket icon Clive Lloyd, have all expressed their opinions as to why Guyana’s cricket is in this state.

Lloyd, in a recent interview with this newspaper, pointed out that the poor performance of the cricketers was linked somewhat to their economical situation.

In other countries the subject of the national team’s failure at international competitions would have been the topic of debates in parliament.

A case in point is the Pakistan cricket team which recently lost all their matches on the tour of Australia.
The upheaval back home resulted in an inquiry committee being set up (which has already met twice)  to probe whether the “disruptive behavior” of a certain player or the poor captaincy were the cause of the team failing to win a match in test and one day cricket.

No such luck here.

The officials in charge of sport in this country appear unconcerned about what is happening and whatever problems the teams are facing internally or externally, will probably be swept under the carpet.

This government continues to exhibit its indifference to the problems affecting Guyanese on the whole and certainly cannot possibly be bothered by the performance of the Guyana national cricket team or with the situation with sports in this country.

Those government officials whose job is to advance sports in Guyana are more concerned with “pomping a scene,” driving the many government vehicles at their disposal and spending hard-earned taxpayers money, rather than devising ways and means to improve the cricket infrastructure and ultimately the standard of cricket.

Other Caribbean countries, however, are moving ahead establishing semi-professional cricket leagues with the assistance of the private sector and erecting stadia and such like.

Yesterday, the Caribbean Media Corporation reported that the Jamaica national track and field team including Usain Bolt will train in the city of Birmingham, England prior to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Makes one proud to be a Jamaican, does it not?

What is happening in sports in Guyana is upsetting but what is even more galling is the fact that the government seems oblivious to criticisms and there seems to be little that anyone else can do to correct the situation.

In the meantime, those in authority point to the National Stadium at Providence and the swimming pool at Liliendaal (which is under construction) as to the government’s efforts to advance sports in Guyana.

At the same time the National Sports Policy is yet to be completed much less implemented and reporters are given the royal run around when they seek interviews with those in authority to talk about sports and its development (the recent budget is a case in point).

The Minister of Sport has been quoted as saying.. “Sports is serious business, it’s a big industry.”

Guyanese cricketers leave this country every year to play cricket in Trinidad, Canada, England and other countries because of the job and other economic benefits.

Is anything being done?

Guyanese cricketers are in essence helping to build the cricket infrastructure of other countries at the expense of their own. When those countries have no further use for them they will no longer be allowed to ply their trade there.
What will happen then? Perhaps those cricketers will channel their energies into other areas. One would hope that crime or drugs would not be among their choices.

In the meantime, one hopes that the National Sports Commission in consultation with the GCB set up a committee to look at the structure of cricket in Guyana and to come up with recommendations for betterment.

Or Guyana’s cricketers will continue to underachieve.