Guyana’s cricket

 

At the end of January, the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) held their respective Annual General Meetings (AGM) three days apart, maybe coincidental or not. It is always the understanding that after such important pillars of organisational strengths, that the stakeholders will feel the sense of hope. However, some ants’ nests were dug up.

Cricket stakeholders, the fans, will ask whether there is a functional Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) and if so, who its operatives are? What is the duty of the cricket Ombudsman? What is going on in Berbice Cricket?

It is no secret that several cases are in the courts that involve county boards, as well as the governing board, the GCB, which has contributed to the downfall of the sport gradually over a few years.

Last Tuesday, for the first time in three years, the GCA was allowed to host elections following the dismissal of an injunction that was granted to the applicant Nazimul Drepaul, a life member of the Everest Cricket Club.

After the election process, re-elected President of the GCA, Roger Harper, said there is an injunction against the DCB, so there is no legal DCB. Due to this, his association does not select a team to participate in any tournament hosted by anyone that tries to host matches under the “DCB” banner.

Harper made it clear that his entity (GCA) will always respect the orders of the court and will do nothing other than to operate in those directions of the court and its orders.

However, subsequent to the GCB’s AGM, Secretary of the Board, Anand Sanasie, informed that the AGM was attended by 13 representatives from Berbice, excluding officials of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB).

He further stated that the other areas county board were represented; “Both of the other areas, the county boards were present, with the full amount of delegates, everything were discussed and resolved at the meeting.”

In this case the other areas county board could only be the DCB and the Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB), since it is those two Boards, along with the BCB, which makes it three boards which falls under the GCB umbrella.

It is unclear who represented the DCB, because there is no legitimate DCB, due to an ongoing court matter which has been ongoing since 2011 and that is a matter for grave concern. However, with the Cricket Act in place, the situation was expected to be resolved some time ago, which to date is not the case because the Act is yet to be implemented. The Act came about to regularise cricket in the country, especially from the administrative position, so there would not be any issues with elections or the cause for any confusions.

Dr Winston McGowan is the Cricket Ombudsman whose appointment came in the wake of the crisis between the current GCB executives and stakeholders of cricket, who wrote to Parliament seeking a resolution to the problem, allowing the Cricket Administration Bill (CAB) to be introduced into law.

In a previous public statement, Dr McGowan said his only duty is to organise and conduct the poll. However, he is yet to conduct a poll since he was appointed.

Then we have to look east to arguably the most productive and cricket-strong county, Berbice. However, over the past year, the governing state of the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) has been thrown into turmoil with an injunction placed against the board by Godwyn Allicock and David Black.

The rational being the injunction stemmed from the fact that Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, along with Young Achievers were inadvertently omitted from the Guyana Cricket Administration Act 2014 as voting members and would have participated in the elections to elect Anil Beharry and other executives, which the plaintiffs of the injunction deemed to be illegal.

Be that as it may, the Beharry-led executive term in office expired on December 31, 2016, with the injunction still intact. It begs the question now as how will the cricket affairs of the county be governed with no legitimate office bearers. With all the issues in our cricket, I will have to ask one more question, where is our cricket going? The answer may be soon arrived to once the Ombudsman intervenes.