Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTY&SC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/Secretary, Hilbert Foster is questioning the formula used in arriving at the Guyana Cricket Board’s (GCB) Club-of-the-Year award.
Recently, the GCB held its Annual Awards Ceremony where a number of persons, clubs and teams were rewarded for their work in the year.
At the ceremony, it was announced that the Blairmont Cricket Club had won the Club-of-the-Year award from ominees such as the RHTY&SC and the Georgetown Cricket Club.
In a letter to this newspaper, Foster voiced his concern of the rationale at arriving at the winning club. “During my limited spare time, my favourite thing to do is to watch a Television Programme “Crime Watch”. It is quite amazing to watch as detectives work against great odds to solve very difficult cases. As a fan of the show, I am seriously considering writing in to the producers for them to solve the mystery of how Blairmont Cricket Club won the Guyana Club of the Year 2018 Award,” Foster wrote.
Foster said that he found it very odd that even the Demerara Cricket Club, which has hands down been the best club in Georgetown for 2018 with a number of national players along with two young players earning West Indies selections, was not even nominated.
In Berbice, where 30 tournaments were held, RHTY&SC won 12 titles and were runners-up in three while Blairmont won two tournaments and finished runners up in two more.
“To compare Blairmont Cricket Club’s record of achievement to the Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club would be like comparing the batting record of Lara, Richards and Chanderpaul to Walsh, Croft and Glenn McGrath. There is no comparison, yet the wisdom tank of our National Cricket Board committed the biggest heist in the history of the World,” Foster charged.
He listed the number of national players that have come out from the two clubs – a total of 16 players across all levels – including Shemaine Campbelle and Sheneta Grimmond who were a part of the Women’s World T20 West Indies squad, Jonathan Rampersaud, Shebeka Gajnabi and Kevlon Anderson, all of whom were selected for West Indies training camps while Blairmont produced three players, two at the Guyana under-17 and one at Guyana under-19 levels.
At the awards ceremony RHTY&SC’s Kevin Sinclair, copped the MVP and most wickets at Regional U19 and was also voted the Junior Cricketer-of-the-Year, Campbelle won the Female-Cricketer-of-the-Year, Grimmond was adjudged the Most Promising Female-Player and was nominated for Female-Cricketer-of-the-Year along with Gajnabi.
Foster said that RHTY&SC orchestrated over 300 cricket development and community programmes including the largest cricket academy. The club also used over $2 million of its funds to assist the Berbice Cricket Board.
It also single handedly raised $10 million in cash and kind for the Berbice Cricket Board in 2018 and assisted other clubs with over $3M worth of gear, balls, stumps, scorebooks and trophies, stated Foster.
West Indies Cricket is at the bottom of an endless dark pit and will remain there unless our cricket administrators develop a Cricket First Policy, said Foster.
The Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club would be very grateful if the powers that be can explain to the Guyanese public why Blairmont Cricket Club was named Club-of-the-Year and what were the criteria used, said Foster.
