On Sunday the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) hosted its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at its La Bonne Intention (LBI) Board Hostel and for a second successive time its election was not held.
This means that all the executives have returned to their positions unopposed, due to the Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) of October 2016. Those nominated for posts at last October’s OGM were Drubahadur (President), Fizul Bacchus (Vice President), Anand Sanasie (Secretary), Virendra Chintamanie (Assistant Secretary), Anand Kalladeen (Treasurer), Rajendra Singh (Marketing Manager), Colin Europe (Competitions Chairman), Rayon Griffith (Chairman of National Selectors) and Nazimul Drepaul (Junior Selector).
According Secretary of the Board, Sanasie, because of challenges against the Cricket Administration Act there could not be an election. “A motion that came from the OGM as it relates to nomination for position on the executive committee of the GCB was presented, as was done in October as required by the constitution of the GCB, that motion was accepted, but because of a pending Court matter, in which a number of plaintiffs including the GCB have challenge certain aspects of the Cricket Administration Act, it was ruled that there cannot be any election by bodies that falls under the Act and GCB is one such body.”
Additionally, Sanasie said the motion before the AGM clearly indicated that there was only one nomination for each of the positions, at that stage it was entered into the minutes and that nomination stands until the process of election is complete.
Several of the GCB executives (from left to right): Colin Europe, Anand Kalladeen, Anand Sanasie, Drubahadur, Fizul Bacchus, and Rajendra Singh
The Secretary informed that the AGM was attended by 13 representatives from Berbice, who shared their concerns. “…surprisingly, and what is good for cricket is that there was an entourage that came down from Berbice that amounted to 13 representatives from Berbice, most of them representative of First Division clubs in Berbice… some of them are executives, but came in the capacity as representative of their clubs… We listened to their issues and so on, and they have pledged to resolved issues in the Berbice area, some of them that has nothing to do with the GCB, but two of which address the issue of their attendance,” Sanasie detailed.
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 was discussed and resolved at the meeting.”
However, it is unclear who represented the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) because there are no legitimate DCB due to an ongoing Court matter.
Sanasie also stated that over the last four to five years a lot of cricket has been played and the sport has not suffered. In contrast to what Sanasie said, there was no limited overs competition in 2016 to prepare the National Team for the ongoing Regional Super50 tournament or to identify emerging talent. He did state that the Board has no control over the weather, but will ensure that the competitions are completed in 2017. This will be done because of a scheduled the administrators came up with, so hopefully the weather would not affect them. Why this scheduled was not in place prior to 2017?
Additionally, if the sport has benefitted then it means the players have benefitted as well, but with the amount of talented and top players playing professionally overseas this is yet to be proven.
