Dear Editor,
I should firstly admit that Mr Foster did indeed make contact with my Guyana office on Monday, supposedly after reading my letter regarding the path forward to resolve the crisis surrounding cricket in Guyana, but I was unavailable for which I apologize (‘The government must allow the GCB to carry out its functions,’ SN, September 11).
One would have thought that Mr. Foster would have supported my call for a structured resolution to this impasse but instead he has chosen to publicly chastise my fleeting factual reference to his comments regarding the work of the infamous IMC since its formation almost a year ago (‘Did not say that the cricket IMC was a failure,’ SN, September 19). He carefully sidestepped the larger substantive issue contained in my letter, which is that the work of the IMC was doomed to fail owing to its illegality, non-recognition by the WICB and the misconstrued basis of its formation, since only the GCB and its members are legally authorized to change its constitution and administrate the game of cricket in Guyana. This letter is very revealing in that Mr Foster chose therein only to protect his image, as well he should, but could have weighed in on any of the other issues contained in my letter. I guess he agrees with everything else.
Mr Foster’s outstanding prowess at public relations is not matched by his recordkeeping abilities or his memory capabilities. My informant was a letter penned by the said Mr Foster in the SN dated August 9, 2012 very aptly headlined, ‘Outstanding Guyanese who love cricket should work together to find a solution to this unholy mess.’ In that letter the verbatim extract from the fourth paragraph states, “Editor, may I in my personal capacity express my disappoint[ment] in the Interim Manage-ment Committee. Both the Guyana Cricket Board and the Interim Management Committee have proved to be great failures [my emphasis], and have let down our young cricketers. Once you accept an official position, it is your duty to make sure that you work to the best of your abilities and be an agent of progress and not destruction.“ I would not want to pass judgment on the comprehension skills of Mr Foster, but this statement clearly calls both the GCB and the IMC “great failures“ after expressing his “disappointment.” I am tempted to proffer an apology to Mr Foster since he denied calling the IMC a failure (about which he is correct), but instead referred to it as a “great failure.“ His response letter of September 19 seems more to be an apology to Mr Lloyd, since his last sentence in the quoted paragraph above can be clearly interpreted as a direct attack on all the members of the IMC which is headed by Mr Lloyd.
For all intents and purposes, with the exception of Mr Lloyd, the IMC is/was a group of disgruntled and egotistical ex-GCB executives who failed to gain power through democratic means and have since attempted to use their political influence to hijack the GCB. This band of power-hungry individuals has sought to destroy the game of cricket at every opportunity, yet still Mr Foster issued a call in his August 9 letter for these said individuals who presided over the destruction of cricket in Guyana to come together to find a solution. Most of these individuals are the problem.
He may have inadvertently omitted Mr Clive Lloyd from that distinguished list as he does not consider Mr Lloyd to be in the category of outstanding Guyanese. He may yet have to issue another apology to the IMC head.
Whilst we are at it, Mr Foster should avoid issuing advice to anyone and should utilize his significant administrative ability to draft a decent constitution to replace the ‘2 page’ abomination that the BCB calls a constitution.
Yours faithfully,
Raj Singh
