Guyana Franchise responds to Sarwan’s comments on Sportsmax

The new Guyana Franchise Company Cricket Guy Inc (CGI) responds to former West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan comments which was made during a recent interview with Sportsmax.

In a press release sent to this publication late yesterday afternoon, CGI said that it wished to correct statements by the former West Indies Test player.

These statements were made during an interview on Sportsmax – Monday following the WICB Professional Cricket League players draft held in Barbados and was also published in the T & T Newsday yesterday.

Following is the test of the CGI release.

“Firstly, CGI would like to congratulate both Mr. Sarwan and the T & T Red Steel franchise for their new partnership which undoubtedly we trust would redound to the best interest and future of West Indies cricket.

For T & T Red Force, they have selected one of the most talented players in the West Indies and for Mr. Sarwan, he has joined one of the most professional entities in the West Indies. Our wholehearted felicitations to both parties!

The WICB has embarked on a new journey with this franchise system which is aimed at professionalizing the game throughout the Caribbean with the specific aim of having the best players on show right throughout the extended season of five (5) months. This is a brand new innovation to us in the West Indies and would take time for everyone to get accustomed to its operations. Through this system, it is hoped that the good to excellent players will shine through whilst the non-committed ones will be weeded out by themselves. In other words, the success of the players all would be measured by their hard work, attitude, discipline and dedication that they make to their chosen career and profession. Cricketers now can truly say that they have a profession with the implementation of this system and 105 players throughout the Caribbean are now being paid to toil their trade rather than just 15 that the WICB would normally contract. There are several other benefits to this new franchise system which will slowly evolve and eventually be appreciated by everyone.

It was indeed sad to see and hear one of greatest cricketers in the WI publicly launch such a vicious assault on an unnamed official of CGI without any evidence whatsoever to support his wild assertions. It should be noted that CGI had a public launching of the new franchise system on Tuesday, September 23rd at the Everest Cricket Club Pavilion at which event almost 100% of the Inter county players attended the seminar with the notable exception of Mr. Sarwan. The CGI Selection Committee selected its original 10 team members from the players they had available.

Mr. Sarwan had called the board about two weeks ago to say that he was not fit to participate in both the Inter County 50 Overs and the four-day format administered by the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) in August and September. He further stated that he would have been fit in a month’s time which would have coincided with the start of the Regional WICB season. Mr. Sarwan last represented Guyana in Trinidad at the Nagico Super50 tournament in TT during the month of February 2014, then travelled to Jamaica with the four-day team and declared himself unfit just prior to the start of our first Regional 4 day match against Jamaica.

Be that as it may, the selectors of the CGI thought it wise to include Mr. Sarwan in the draft with the hope that he would have proven his fitness as stated above.

By this very action, the selectors had Mr. Sarwan within their radar. It was indeed unfortunate for CGI not to have had the chance to select Mr. Sarwan prior to the Red Force and it is most regrettable that he should make such a remark. For the knowledge of everyone, the WICB has indicated that all 15 players for each franchise will be drafted from the pool next year. This was discussed at length at the franchise launching at Everest.

The CGI would like to start its operations on a sound and professional footing and urge players not to get too personal and emotional in their outbursts as only 15 players can be selected by each franchise and not everyone can be selected but the WICB has ensured that more players are now being contracted as professional cricketers. We are all aware that, unfortunately, Mr. Sarwan had previously lost/cut short his contracts with the Kings XI Punjab in the IPL, his CPL contract with the Amazon Warriors and more recently with the English county team, Leicestershire. He was also not awarded a WICB retainer contract this year.

We wish the 15 retained players for the Guyana Jaguars all the best in the forthcoming Regional tournaments and trust that they will rise to the occasion as West Indies cricket is poised for very interesting times. In addition, players not retained are still eligible to be selected to play in matches on a Pay for Play basis,” the release ended.

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