Dear Editor,
I was intrigued by the piece from the renowned Oscar Ramjeet on Berbice cricket in your publication of February 25. He (Ramjeet) would not have remembered, but it had to be before the year 1965 to which he refers, when I was a member of the Blairmont Estate Community Centre team that competed in the Davson Cup Cricket Competition in Berbice. Not only was I personnel manager at the estate at the time, but along with Chetram Singh, then hospital administrator, New Amsterdam, and President of the Berbice Board, I supported him, as Vice President, on the stand we took not to participate in inter-county competition until we had been given recognition equal to the Demerara Cricket Board, for example.
It was exactly because Berbice had then the talents of which Oscar speaks that we were eventually conceded board status. Incidentally, it was about the same period when I persuaded Clyde Walcott, then sports advisor to the sugar industry, to give Blairmont’s Roy Fredericks a chance at the ongoing trial matches. Roy made a century on his first appearance at Bourda. I remained just one of Blairmont’s estate opening bowlers.
Sincerely,
E.B. John
