The Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) hosted its third annual awards ceremony at State House in New Amsterdam where Guyana and West Indies middle order batsman Narsingh Deonarine was honoured with the Cricketer-of-the-Year award on Sunday evening.
The ceremony also saw West Indies youth players Guyanese Trevon Griffith and Keon Joseph and Barbadians Kraigg Braithwaite, Shane Dowrich and Jason Holder being honoured by the board.
The gala ceremony was also attended by players from the Guyana and Barbados teams that contested the WICB regional four-day tournament at the Albion ground where Guyana eventually lost by 58 runs on Monday.
Deonarine, currently in Australia with the West Indies team, became the first player to score 1,000 runs in a West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) first class season. This eventually earned him a recall to the West Indies team for the England summer series before the dispute between WI and the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) caused the senior WI players to strike, Deonarine included.
He retained his place in the team for the Test series last December and the current ODI and Twenty20 series in Australia where he has had marginal success with the bat and ball.
Against this backdrop Financial Director of Guyana Telephone & Telegraph (GT&T) Yog Mahadeo, who delivered the feature address, told the cricketers that they held the power in their hands.
Mahadeo told the gathering that while in the past this region had produced cricketers who are worthy of emulation the future can replicated if cricketers are willing to work hard and dedicate themselves to the game.
The Ancient County has produced John Trim, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Roy Fredericks, Ivan Madray, Alvin Kallicharran, Leonard Baichan, Sew Shivnarine, Clayton Lambert, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Sewnarine Chattergoon and Deonarine.
Mahdeo noted, “While those names resonate with the people of the world, the memories continue to cast bright hope for the glory days to return. The day when Guyana can claim its place on top, the day when Berbice can stamp its dominance in the country and the day when West Indies can claim world dominance in cricket and hopefully in our lifetime, economics. To the youngsters, I say, your name can rank right up there since the power of the people is with you.”
He noted also that cricketers retire early from the game and have families to maintain. In that light he advised that they explore other avenues that will aid in their personal development as too many times administrators forget the human factor.
“We expect our cricketers to have a degree and be well educated, – to be witty and be ready to engage in verbal warfare, – to be public speakers, to be good actors in the eyes of the umpire and the world, to be good family persons, to be role models, to be well off and not think about the next dollar, to have their own means of transportation, to have perfect health, to have catered for pension and old age, to have money to educate their children, and of course to be a perfect batter, bowler, fielder, all-rounder as the case may be,” Mahdeo observed.
He said that all of these things are expected “without lifting a national finger to ensure that it happens.” He said too that many times when players perform they are sent congratulatory messages without remembering the basic human factors.
National sport
conscience
“Our national cricket, indeed our national sport conscience, must develop if we expect our sportsmen and sportswomen to develop and be what we desire them to be. Yes, we expect you our sports personalities, you our cricketers to perform but we also must express our national and social conscience in a constructive and well defined manner,” Mahadeo pointed out.
Other recipients of awards included national player Assad Fudadin who received the Senior Inter-county Player Award while national left arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul copped the Most Disciplined senior player award.
West Indies Female Cricketer Shemaine Campbell won both the Junior and Senior Female Cricketer-of-the-Year top prize and Albion Cricket Club, the Team-of-the-Year award after it won the 2009 National 40-over tournament.
Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club took home the BCB
Club-of-the-Year award.
Other awardees of the evening were Under-13 Cricketer-of- the-Year Nicholas Cameron; Under-15 player Gudakesh Motie Kanhai; Berbice Under-17 player Dominic Rickey; Under-19 player Jonathan Foo; Under-23 player Jason Sinclair; Junior Award for Discipline Loyden Lewis, Most Improved Player Videsh Singh with runners-up Surujnarine Kandasammy and Keion De Jesus, School District of the Year – Corentyne District, Umpire-of-the-Year Dhieranidranauth Somwaru and Runner-Up Roshan Moakan, Adrian Amsterdam, Coach-of-the-Year and Local Manager/Coach of the Year, Patrick Lewis.
Royston Crandon, Tremayne Smartt and Shemaine Campbell were also honoured with special plaques for making their debut to the West Indies team while ten young cricketers drawn from across the Berbice area were honoured by the BCB as promising players for the future.
The players included Shawn Perreira, Shailendra Shameer, Avinash Wajid, Lalchand Ramoo, Adrian Persaud and Randolph David Jnr. Akeem Bowling, Phaffiana Millington, Parmanand Ramdat and Shimron Hetmyer.