Dear Editor,
Kaieteur News on July 8, reported extensively on the commissioning of the $91M floodlights project at the Albion Sports Complex in Berbice. Included in this comprehensive report was an appropriate acknowledgement of the nodal role played by the sugar industry in the development of cricket in Guyana, as well as the exemplary performances of immortal Berbice greats. Among those named were John Trim, Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kalicharran and Roy Fredericks.
Conspicuous by its absence was the name of Joe Solomon, that other great (if not as shining) son of Port Mourant, Berbice, Guyana and the West Indies, and the cricketing world at large.
Joe Solomon’s exploits in the field are the stuff of legend (who can ever forget his last ball throw from the boundary that resulted in a run-out and the first ever tied Test when the West Indies played Australia in 1959?).
What must never be forgotten is Joe Solomon’s role as an indefatigable trainer and coach which benefited so many budding cricketers in Berbice and Guyana.
As successive former Human Resources Directors in GuySuCo we can safely argue that the reason Joe Solomon would be regarded as a memorable West Indian so far as the sugar industry is concerned, is his return in the early 1990s as adviser and cricket coach, roles in which he performed outstandingly – and which he expanded to impact positively on Guyana’s cricket as a whole, including not only at the level of national selector, but also the actual development of individual cricketers, and literally the grounds on which they played.
In the final analysis, in this context he emerged from the earlier sequencing of the triumvirate of Kanhai, Butcher, Solomon, to become the front runner in contribution to Berbice cricket development after returning from the actual playing field.
Butcher incidentally made his contribution to cricket development in the once developed Linden community.
Yours faithfully,
Nowrang Persaud
E B John
