Letter to the Sports Editor)
THE RECENT sham presentation by the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) to Bayrock Cricket Club highlights the desperation of the Anand Sanasie clique to create even further confusion in Demerara cricket towards maintaining their illegal control of both the Demerara Cricket Board and the GCB.Cricket in Upper Demerara is administered by the duly constituted Upper Demerara Cricket Association (UDCA) which was founded in 2000 and which remains the sole legitimate authority for cricket in Upper Demerara.
It seems therefore that mischief is afoot when Sanasie can turn up in Linden to make a presentation of cash and cricket bats to Bayrock without acknowledging the UDCA as the parent body in that region. It is the very Sanasie who for years rigorously opposed the UDCA’s claim for membership of the Demerara Cricket Board (DCB) and even refused to recognise the existence of the UDCA.
In a move that could only be described as callous, the Sanasie group submitted to Parliament a voluminous document deliberately crafted to block the inclusion of Linden in Demerara Cricket through the Guyana Cricket Administration Bill (GCAB).
As a staunch Lindener and a long-standing cricket fan, I am particularly disturbed that Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon and the president of the Bayrock Cricket Club, Lancelot Easton, accepted the cheque and bats on behalf of a previously unheard of Upper Demerara Cricket Committee.
I believe that both Sharma Solomon and Lancelot Easton are allowing themselves to be used by Sanasie and his cohorts, who seem bent on winning favours in Linden now that the Cricket Bill has been passed and signed off by President Donald Ramotar paving the way for UDCA to officially become the fifth constituent member of the DCB.
Easton’s position is perplexing especially as he is a past president of the UDCA and his club Bayrock was a founding member of the UDCA in 2000. In a remarkable turnabout, for reasons best known to him, Easton has supported Sanasie and Rohan Sarjoo’s position that the entire Upper Demerara Region 10 of forty-five thousand persons must fall under the direct control of the East Bank Demerara Cricket Association, headed by Rohan Sarjoo. It is important to note that Rohan Sarjoo was a part of the presentation to Bayrock.
Sharma Solomon, in dealing with and supporting the Sanasie clan, is therefore alarming, having regard to the fact that Solomon’s party, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) supported and voted in favour of the Cricket Administration Bill and, by extension, the inclusion of Upper Demerara as a legal and constituent member of the DCB.
And, ipso facto, the UDCA for the first time ever will belong to the structure of Guyana Cricket thereby eventually righting a long-imposed injustice to the Region.
The good people of Linden may want to question why their Chairman, Sharma Solomon, would want to support in any way a person (Sanasie) who campaigned unrelentingly for the exclusion of Region 10 from Guyana Cricket.
Any funds or cricket equipment allocated for cricket in Upper Demerara must be channelled through the legitimate body, the UDCA. It is disappointingly evident that Sharma Solompn and the good office he represents have been unwittingly used to further Sanasie’s self-serving agenda.
Sanasie has earned for himself the dubious reputation of disbursing monies received from the WICB for cricket development in Guyana only to those entities and individuals who either support him or over whom he can have control especially in relation to delegates at elections of cricket officials.
It is important to note that, as he doles out the WICB monies to only his favourites, the Berbice Cricket Board, the East Coast Cricket Board and the Georgetown Cricket Association have, for over four years, not received any monies nor one cricket bat from the GCB while players from these areas consistently make up the national teams at all levels.
The Berbice Cricket Board is justifiably referred to as the best-run and most productive cricket board in Guyana and the Georgetown Cricket Association as the best-run Association.
Mr Sharma Solomon, as an APNU member and the Chairman of Region 10, may want to re-examine his involvement in that presentation charade and to clear his name as I hold the view that he was deliberately misled on the cricket issues as they relate to Upper Demerara.
Failing which, he may be accused of acting against the best interests of the good people of Upper Demerara who have fought the Sanasie and Rohan Sarjoo group to end the isolation of Linden and Upper Demerara Cricket.
What is so very wrong with our cricket over the past four years is the poor crop of administrators who continue to use every conceivable trick and sham to stay in control of Guyana cricket.
Sharma Solomon and Lancelot Easton must set the example to ensure that the people of Upper Demerara, including and especially the cricket officials, are mindful that they do not fall prey to Sanasie’s wiles and his mastery of the art of divide and rule.
Henry Farnum
Cricket Umpire
guyanachronicle.com
