Foster appeals for re-introduction of Senior Inter-County

– “There is pride in being identified as a Berbician cricketer”

By Akeem Greene

The last Guyana Cricket Board-organised Senior Inter-County tournament occurred in 2015. In August 2016, Cricket Guyana Inc. (CGI) implemented a semi-professional Jaguars’ Franchise League, which comprised eight teams from sub-districts of counties.
That move essentially ended, whether temporarily or permanently, the intense battle of attrition over four days between county teams both at home and away. It usually saw an appreciable amount of crowd support for the priceless battles that determined national spots.

“We are calling for return of the senior inter-county (tournament), because while it is nice to be known as a Lower Corentyne of Upper Corentyne (player), there is pride in being identified as a Berbice player. I was speaking to a former Test cricketer, and he indicated to me that he was (as) proud to play for Berbice as he was playing for Guyana and West Indies,” Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) President, Hilbert Foster, told the media on Friday.
He added, “While the league cricket is good regarding the financial rewards for cricketers, I think the GCB should return to the inter-county system. Berbice cricket strongly urges senior inter-county to be returned”.

In response, Territorial Development Official (TDO) of the GCB, Colin Stuart, outlined that financial constraints would have caused the Board to “temporarily discontinue” the senior inter-county tournament. The franchise league is league is played on a three-day basis with seven rounds, and it is understood that players are remunerated $5,000 per day for matches.
“What we looked at — and sponsors comes in here too — we looked at inviting more persons and giving them an opportunity to play for Guyana”, Stuart conveyed.
He further stated, “It does not say you won’t have a situation where you have three or four teams playing. Our real plan when we put together these 8 teams was that after you have round-robin, it will go down to four teams, by pulling from 8 teams and to four strong teams”.
Explaining why, in two years, the latter part of the plan did not materialise, he said it was “due to a lack of finances, since it is the board who currently undertakes funding the league”.
Just recently, North Essequibo Cricket Committee, an affiliated member of the Essequibo Cricket Board, began voicing support for re-introduction of the senior inter-county cricket tournament.

Lack of matches in Berbice
The recent GCB-organised under-19 inter-county tournament which was sponsored by Hand-in-Hand Insurance saw no matches being played in the Ancient County. Demerara and Essequibo were the beneficiaries.
Most of those matches were affected by rain, and spectator attendance was mostly miniscule; even at the final, which was shifted to the Providence ground on Friday. It is a situation which has left the BCB boss quite perturbed.
“We recently had a meeting with our stakeholders, and we are very upset, because even for this under-19 cricket, we wrote the Cricket Board administration asking to host one or two of the matches, and what I can tell you is that if these finals were played in Berbice we would have had hundreds of people in the ground. It is very disappointing to come and find about 20 people at the ground in a final of this magnitude,” he lamented.
Fosters deems the situation unfair for one team to have home advantage and not give administrators and parents opportunity to see their children play on home soil.
Addressing this situation, Stuart again blamed lack of finances as a mitigating factor in the Board not providing an equal share of matches for counties.
“It is on the cards to have cricket played in all three of the counties. GCB normally seeks corporate support, but given the magnitude of sponsorship and the fact we are now housing players, it really takes a lot; so, at the moment, we centralised it to Demerara”, the former Windies fast-bowler explained.