Incumbent president of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) Hilbert Foster will seek re-election when the body hosts its Annual General Meeting at the Port Mourant Cricket Club Sunday.
Three sub associations and 13 clubs will vote in the elections.
The sub associations are the West Berbice Cricket Association, the Upper Corentyne Cricket Association and the Berbice River Cricket Association.
The clubs are Blairmont, Police, Guymine, Mental Hospital, Mt. Sinai, Rose Hall Canje, Young Warriors, Chesney, RHTYSC, Port Mourant, Albion, Kildonan and Whim.
Each club has two votes and the three sub-associations, four votes each.
Foster, who is also a vice-president of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and a Director of Cricket West Indies (CWI) was first elected to the presidency in February 2018 and has spearheaded a major transformation of the county’s cricket over the last four years.
Foster says he has no interest in the politics of cricket and will be running solely on his unmatched list of achievements.
According to Foster, he inherited a cricket system that was on the verge of total collapse addi9ng that, despite achieving the impossible to date, much more still has to be done as the intention is to make Berbice, the jewel in the crown of West Indies cricket.
He says his administration took over a system with less than $50,000 in the bank, no proper cricket tournament completed in two years, no developmental programmes in place and no proper office to operate from while players were quitting the game at a very fast rate.
He claims that monies withdrawn from the board account has not been accounted for by the previous administration.
The current executives, which include Albert Smith, Angela Haniff, Dr. Cecil Beharry, Leslie Solomon, Qualis Winter and Ameer Rahaman, from day one in office worked as a collective body and their record of achievements are unmatched in Guyana and the Caribbean cricket circle, said Foster.
Female cricket was heavily invested into by the BCB and three Berbicians are currently in the West Indies female team.
The board has started or successfully completed a combined 75 cricket tournaments at the junior and senior levels, raised close to $60,000,000 of sponsorship in cash and kind, organised hundreds of developmental programmes, assisted clubs and youth players with over twenty million dollars of items and launched an ambitious educational campaign to make sure Berbice youth players place special emphasis on obtaining an educational background.
Additionally, hundreds of educational grants have been handed out to youths along with educational materials, cycles and uniforms in a massive effort to get youths to stay in school. The BCB also, for the first time, handed out a scholarship to the University of Guyana and unveiled a countywide coaching programme training youths, said Foster.
The board created history when it became the first cricket board to published its own coaching manual and also spearheaded a total restoration of its office.
Among the other achievements highlighted include the distribution of grass cutters, catching cribs, water pitchers, cricket pitch covers while for the first time, sub-associations and the Cricket Umpires Association received financial subventions. Foster was quick to point out that a total of 19 players from Berbice have either played for the regional team at different levels since 2018 or were called to training camps.
Asked to name his greatest achievement, the veteran administrator stated that he was very proud at the state of unity that existed in the county cricket and the fact that dozens of former players based overseas are contributing back to the game.
“This,” he stated “is based on their confidence in his team. Another major achievement has been to make sure that no ghost member clubs exist in the county.”
Clubs such as Guymine, Kildonan, Mt. Sinai are all back on their feet and are very active in playing tournaments.
He also stated that his board has been very transparent with the general public via aggressive public relations campaign on social media and the national printed and electronic media.
The 52-year-old BCB President expressed gratitude to the sponsors and donors who have support the board and made special mention of overseas Guyanese like Dr Tulsi Dyal Singh, Dr Puran Singh, Brian Ramphal, Sureain Sawh and Bobby Deonarine among others.
