Dear Sir,
When on Friday, August 6, 2010 an emergency meeting of the executives of the Guyana Cricket Board was summoned, the sole objective was to seek to remove the threats to the participation of the Guyana team in the Champions League tournament in South Africa.
Guyana had just won the West Indies Cricket Board’s regional Twenty/20 competition, spectacularly defeating Barbados in the final and earning the right to represent the region in South Africa.
Naturally, there was great jubilation across the land and within the local cricket board.
The jubilation within the GCB was tempered by communication from the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), proposing what should be the allocation to the players of the fees for the tournament.
In a thinly-veiled threat, it was suggested that if a deal could not be struck between the board and WIPA, the Guyanese players could miss out on participating in the tournament.
That would have been a massive disaster; the emergency meeting was convened.
Everything that was possible needed to be done to facilitate Guyana’s presence in South Africa.
The executives at that August 6 meeting unanimously resolved to institute legal proceedings against WIPA and authorized the President, Chetram Singh and the Secretary, Anand Sanasie to bring those legal proceedings in the name of the board.
It was a unanimous resolution.
No member registered any objection or recorded any reservation. It was unanimous. The action was taken and the matter was resolved.
You would appreciate then how astonished everyone else was when three members of the board convened a Press Conference last Friday and announced that they were disassociating themselves from that resolution.
More astonishing is the case of one of them who was one of the two signatories to the resolution.
We must wonder about the need to take such a matter into the public domain.
Surely if there were concerns, the three could have requested, or, in fact, demanded, that another emergency meeting be convened to discuss, and hopefully resolve, those concerns
The Press Conference seems like just one more attempt to heap embarrassment on the board and Guyana’s cricket to which we all committed ourselves to serve.
We must assume that the three had good reason to take such action.
The President and Secretary, now on their way with the team to South Africa, have asked that their deep disappointment, distress and disgust be recorded.
It is important, though, that we remind ourselves of the reason for that emergency meeting and recall the anxiety we all felt about the threats from beyond our border.
Everything that was resolved was intended to create the climate that enabled the team to be properly prepared, without unnecessary distractions and to be on their way, as the Amazon Conquerors, to make their mark on the world stage.
The three might not agree but every obstacle had to be overcome to make participation in South Africa possible.
Yours faithfully,
Terry Holder
Public Relations Officer
Guyana Cricket Board
