The last time that I represented Guyana in first-class cricket was 1981/82, when West Indies did not have any “home†series, and Test players appeared for their regional teams. Also, I have not lived in Guyana since 1980, when I moved to Florida, USA, via Trinidad and Tobago. With that background, I am positive that I am as out of Guyana’s cricket loop as a boxed kite without wood, cellophane paper or string! But, as a former Guyana and WI player who has done as much as most, probably more too, who still has bowling records in Guyana and WI cricket, I ask the obvious question: What has gone wrong with Guyana’s cricket as regards WI regional cricket overall? From the outside, it looks as if Guyana’s cricket is meandering into outright purgatory!
Guyana’s cricket is not, presently, any different than that of much maligned Leeward Islands (LI), yet LI ended above Guyana in the recently-concluded 2014 regular round-robin four-day competition.
Guyana struggling regionally
Looking at results for 2014, well presented by Adriel “Woody†Richard and/or Imran Khan, WICB’s media communication officers, Guyana is the only team not to have won any of its six games in the recent fracas. This is not just worrying, but downright disgraceful, when one considers that Guyana could boast, like all territories in WICB’s cricket, to have the same, if not more, talent than most regional entities. Since that is so, then the only other area to investigate is the management of Guyana’s cricket by Guyana’s Cricket Board. Surely they cannot be pleased with what has transpired in this year’s regional season!
I put much trust in reports in Guyana’s newspapers by Sean Devers, former Guyana youth off-spinner who has done an excellent job so far as a sports journalist specialising in covering regional cricket. Much of what Devers writes on Guyana’s cricket turmoil not only rankles but makes one with general pride in Guyana’s cricket, like me, cringe. Apparently the internal politics of Guyana’s cricket has to be experienced to be believed! Last week, a letter to the sports editor in one of Guyana’s newspapers complained bitterly that one important arm of Guyana’s internal cricket was not only illegally manifested, but still exists and openly operates anyway, since that seems to be standard way in that country’s cricket. That letter was not written by Devers, but by, like me, a very concerned Caribbean cricket supporter. In 2012, the government of Guyana attempted to circumvent and undermine the running of Guyana’s cricket, to take over its operations, with an astronomically poorly thought-out process and modus operandi, naming an interim management committee (IMC) headed by former WI captain Clive Lloyd.
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