Dear Editor,
Kindly allow me some space in your newspaper for this letter. Recently I had a chat with a gentleman in my village by the name of Siew Misir and he was telling me how the Berbice Cricket Board was not honouring and recognising the contributions of outstanding past administrators of the Berbice Cricket Board and my res-ponse to him was that probably the present administrators of the Board were not aware of their contributions and I will en-sure that their contributions and achievements are known to cricket fans in Guyana and the diaspora. Hence this letter.
Siew Misir was the Treasurer and Chairman of the selection committee of the Berbice Cricket Board from 1970 to 1976 and also a Berbice Board representative on the Guyana Cricket Board during that same period. The President then was Rampersaud Ramanand who is now living in Canada. He was popularly known as Krud and the Secretary was the late Vic Omrao. Mr. Misir told me that during their tenure, those six years were the glory days of Berbice cricket and he proceeded to serenade me on their accomplishments. They brought a Surrey County Team to Guyana in 1973 and two matches were played at Rose Hall Canje ground and Skeldon ground against a Berbice team and the third match was played at Everest ground against a mixed Berbice and Demerara team. In 1972, they brought the Hyderbad Blues team from Pakistan which was captained by the legendary Haniff Mohamed and included Mushtaq Mohamed, Sadiq Mohamed, Intikhab Alam and others. Three matches were played against a Berbice Eleven at Rose Hall Canje, Port Mourant and Skeldon grounds. In 1975 they brought the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) team that was captained by the legendary and now Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan and included Zaheer Abbas, Safraz Nawaz and others. He told me that the two Pakistan teams drew large crowds at all the matches and they made a huge financial returns which were ploughed back to develop Berbice cricket.
He also alluded to the three first division competitions that they organised during that period namely the three-day Davson Cup, 45 overs Carrega Cup and 50 overs Bristol Cup that unearthed players like Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Ivan Madray, Sugarboy Baijnauth, Roy Fredericks, Alvin Kallicharran, Randolph Ramnarace, Leslie Amsterdam, Kennedy Venkersammy, Gopie Beasmonie and others. In fact he told me that whenever Rohan Kanhai is in Guyana, he stays by him and sometimes Joe Solomon. He was also proud to boast that in those days the standard of cricket in Berbice was of a very high level and crowds flocked to see first division matches. It pains his heart to see the poor standard of cricket in Berbice now and with fans losing interest in first division cricket. Talking to Uncle Misir, it is clear that he is still passionate about Berbice and Guyana cricket and I would like to appeal to the Berbice Cricket Board to show their appreciation by recognising and honouring the outstanding contributions of these three legends of Berbice cricket.
Sincerely,
Imtiaz Baccus
