The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) yesterday announced that it has tentatively scheduled a West Indies v Pakistan Test match for the Providence stadium in light of progress towards the “normalization” of the cricket situation here.
It has been more than a year now since the WICB withdrew international cricket matches from Guyana in a row with the government here over the control of cricket. Guyana has had to play its international matches in the Caribbean and no West Indies cricket has been played here.
In a statement on decisions taken at its January 18, 2013 board meeting in St Lucia, the WICB said:
“The Board received a report on the latest developments on the situation in Guyana and is pleased with the progress being made and the movement towards the normalization of the situation in Guyana.
“The Board approved a recommendation to tentatively schedule one of the West Indies v Pakistan Test matches and two rounds of Super50 and Regional 4 Day matches for the Guyana National Stadium pending the normalization of the situation in Guyana. The Test match is slated for July and the Super50 and 4 Day matches will be after the break in the season which is scheduled for March 12th to 20th.”
It is unclear what “normalization” progress the WICB referred to. In a bid to end the impasse over the national game here, the Government on December 20th, 2012 tabled the Guyana Cricket Administration Bill which seeks to establish county boards as corporate bodies and supplies a constitution for the embattled Guyana Cricket Board (GCB).
The government is hoping that unanimous passage of the bill will end the stalemate with the WICB over the GCB which the government de-recognized at the end of 2011. Having been supplied with details of the proposed constitution, the WICB has already told the government that it has major disagreements with some of the provisions in the bill, in particular the planned dissolution of the GCB.
The WICB has vehemently opposed the government’s move to supplant the GCB with an interim body led by renowned West Indies captain Clive Lloyd. While the government had last year applied pressure to the GCB executive, forcing many of the members to resign, in recent weeks the old GCB executive has regained the ascendancy. A team and captain picked by the GCB for the Caribbean T20 proceeded to the regional competition. A rival team and captain announced by the government were ignored by the WICB. The GCB is also preparing for its own elections this weekend in defiance of the government and has taken a series of steps which the government had originally intended that court action would prevent. GCB executives have since said there is no legal prohibition to the board’s functioning. In the meanwhile there has been little word from the Lloyd-led IMC and the government has not mounted a new challenge to the GCB’s functioning.
Underlining the GCB’s resurgence was the WICB’s announcement yesterday that two members of the GCB had been approved as directors. The first is Anand Sanasie, who had resigned from the WICB directorate last year amid the pressure brought by the government and Anand Kalladeen, also a member of the GCB executive.
The WICB statement said “The Board approved Anand Sanasie and Anand Kalladeen as Directors of the WICB. Sanasie and Kalladeen were nominated by the Guyana Cricket Board. Sanasie was previously a Director of the WICB before resigning in 2012. This is Kalladeen’s first appointment as Director.”
