-WICB concerned at continuing cricket impasse
Guyana is still to name its team for the Caribbean Twenty/20 tournament despite the expiration of the deadline and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) yesterday expressed its concern at the continuing cricket impasse here.
The government and the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) have been engaged in a long-running battle ever since the former established an Interim Management Committee on December 23rd last year to run cricket here headed by renowned, former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd. The move led to legal action by the GCB and tense standoffs which included lockouts of key officials from the cricket board premises and police searches of the homes of several officials. The WICB has maintained that it only recognizes the GCB and subsequent talks among the various parties have failed to produce results. As a result, the WICB withdrew international matches from Guyana.
In the statement yesterday, the WICB said that at a meeting of the Board of Directors on November 24 and November 25 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the board “expressed grave concern at the length of time it is taking for a resolution to be had to the situation in Guyana.”
The Board implored all parties to “use their best endeavours” to ensure that the situation “returns to a level of acceptability in the shortest possible period.”
The WICB also noted that at a meeting of the CARICOM Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket in Antigua in September 2012, the Sub-Committee recommended that all efforts be made towards resolving the differences between the Government of Guyana and the GCB. It pointed out that the Prime Minister of Barbados Freundel Stuart had been appointed as mediator.
“The Board reiterates its position that it recognizes the Guyana Cricket Board as the sole governing body responsible for the administration, management and development of cricket in Guyana. Further the Board reminds that the Guyana Cricket Board is a shareholder of the WICB”, the statement added.
The WICB said it has used its best endeavours to ensure that local players and match officials have participated in every regional tournament under the auspices of the WICB since the crisis in Guyana developed.
It said that the deadline for submission of squads to participate in the Caribbean Twenty20 2013 was November 22, 2012 but that the GCB did not submit the Guyana team by the deadline.
The Board said it has directed the WICB Management to again request the GCB to provide a Guyana team to participate in the Caribbean Twenty20 and for the WICB Management to set a date by which the Guyana team is to be submitted.
The WICB Management will set the date and once it is finalised will communicate same to the GCB and the public, the statement said. The GCB has balked at composing teams as a means of applying pressure on the government to compromise in the ongoing dispute.
