Dear Editor,
On the 31st December 2022, I observed that the Guyana Cricket Board published an epistle on its Facebook page captioned, “GCB satisfied with its 2022 achievements”. It was obvious from reading the long self-praising publication that mediocrity has become the accepted norm in the organization, or that readers have suddenly become dumb on cricket’s performance, not something that can be said of this cricket loving nation. Hence, after great consideration and some basic online browsing, I decided to pen this letter.
Not so long ago, the GCB was regarded as the best organized and administered cricket board in the region with 6 regional under-19 wins and 5 senior 4 day wins in less than an 8-year period. Construction of playing facilities, without government’s assistance, and training of top-quality coaches and other officials were some of the fantastic achievements under the previous cricket board. The GCB’s published article was heavily padded with unrelated cricket matters (political), not clear on actual performance and placement in regional tournaments and photographs that were certainly unrelated to cricket achievements. In fact, one of the images bears a striking resemblance to the president of Guyana and the other to the President of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. The president of Guyana loves his cricket but certainly has nothing to do with the below par performance of GCB and its selected officials and teams, as I would address later.
I must first of all make it pellucid that the Guyana Cricket Board has no operational or administrative role in the organisation or execution of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). Mr. Bobby Ramroop, owner of the Guyana Amazon Warriors, and his staff are the local administrators while the owners of CPL manages the playoff stage. Significantly, it should be noted that the cricket carnival CPL was organized and executed by a committee appointed by President Ali and consisted of no representative from the Guyana Cricket Board, so the masquerading by the GCB is quite obvious. It is being reported (to be seen when GCB audited financials are published) that the GCB purchased over $4 million in CPL tickets for executives, friends, family and supporters, this being the extent of their participation in the CPL, a remarkable first- time achievement.
My online research indicated the following “satisfactory achievements” of the Bissoondyal Singh led Guyana Cricket Board, in Regional Tournaments over the past year.
1. Regional Four (4) day tournament – third of six participating teams
2. Regional 50 Over Male – Fourth of Eight participating teams
3. Regional 50 Over Female – Fourth of Six participating teams
4. Regional T20 Blaze Female—Fourth of Six participating Teams
5. Regional Under-19 boys’ 3-day tournament – Fourth of Six participating teams.
6. Regional Under-19 Girls’ tournament – The GCB article did not report on this tournament but while some news articles are available online no points table can be seen.
7. Regional Under 17-Boys’ tournament – Fifth of Six participating teams.
8. Regional Under 15-Boys’ Tournament – Second of Six participating teams.
Not much local cricket was played with the Under-15 aborted while the Under-19 boys did not even get started. Berbice, the proverbial prodigal son, won almost everything that was actually played while its President, Hilbert Foster, was sidelined in cricket’s political maneuvers, even being removed as a director of CWI to be replaced by a man who was not even in a cricket club setup a few months before and is currently facing allegations of corruption in Essequibo. Only 2 years ago, Guyana was unique in developing a system of franchise cricket (recently reiterated by Trinidadian coach K Rampat) with eight franchises playing in all three formats on a round robin basis where 120 players and 40 coaches and officials completed over 4 months of cricket before regional tournaments. This has all been abandoned by the current administration for a mere 5 days of intercounty cricket.
In about three weeks, Guyana would be playing regional four-day cricket and no three-day cricket has been played even at the minimal intercounty level. In 2022, no under-19 or under-15 cricket was played. In fact, the GCB is threatening its only sponsor, Dave West Indian Imports, with court action for fees even though the under-15 tournament was not played and 50% of sponsorship money was received in advance. This certainly has no good result for cricket. In 2022 the GCB dismissed it two most successful regional coaches, Mr. Esau Crandon who was at the helm when Guyana Jaguars won five regional Four-day tournaments, while Julian Moore was in charge when we won 6 under-19 tournaments, prompting the then Board to put him in control of the Academy. These are seasoned coaches who could have been in contention for CWI duties like Reyon Griffith at this crucial time. They are certainly more experienced and qualified than their replacements whom I wish best of luck.
Let’s now look at the promises, promises, promises. On 20th January 2022, Bissoondyal Singh announced that there would soon be cricket in primary schools, well apparently, he is still planning on meeting the minister this year. His release also promised under-19 club cricket, under-23 cricket and 18 academies. After 2 years in office, the current GCB seem to be only making promises. In the GCB release, we were bluffed with the CWI roll out of Five-for-Fun Republic Bank Programme, which is actually a programme for all the islands in the Caribbean trying to replicate the Scotia Bank’s Kiddies’ cricket programme, only less comprehensive. Bluff, Bluff. 2023 would be the year!! May very well be the year of cricket’s demolition.
The original cricket academy programme (emerging players) was established seven years ago by the then secretary, Mr. Anand Sanasie, and created a group of players on standby for national duties; it developed a feeder system to the national team and kept under-19 players in training. This programme was abandoned by the current administration upon taking office. In fact, the money was used to hire new staff during the Covid pandemic when no cricket was played. A new CEO was hired at substantial salary (est. 500 000), for a man that is not computer literate and a pensioner. It is also my understanding that the current secretary of the GCB is also not computer literate, no wonder the lack of communication. Also, a pensioner apparently was elected at its controversial elections as Cricket Ombudsman. Am wondering if the next thing we will hear is the GCB is modernizing. I would also like to address the fallacy of dumping mud on the all- weather outfield at LBI.
The LBI facility was the brainchild of Guyana’s best ever cricket administrator, Mr. Anand Sanasie, who developed it from a cow pasture to a fast-drying international standard facility with LED floodlights complete with power generation etc. Since his departure, because of lack of maintenance and overuse, the outfield was damaged while the ground preparation equipment have all gone into disrepair. The GCB, in its list of satisfactory achievements 2022, had the temerity to thank the government for providing mud to dump on the playing area, now rendering it useless. One has to wonder if no one other than Mr. Sanasie realized years ago that the GCB needed a fast drying playing area to combat the rainy season, which is now destroyed. It appears as though someone was excavating a construction site and wanted a place to dump dirt, now the entire drainage network installed at great cost is useless. It is important to note that the current GCB has built or improved nothing in their 2 years in office, while continuing to destroy all that was built without any governments’ help.
A visit to the indoor practice facility and hostel, also built by Mr. Sanasie, would reveal the ongoing destruction, the nets are destroyed and the ball is damaging walls and windows. We are returning to the National Sports Hall, from where we came. My name is below, am waiting on the missiles.
Sincerely,
Godwyn Allicock
Sports Administrator