Colin Croft vilified Burnham

Jan 11, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
My attention has been drawn to an article written by Colin E H Croft which appeared under the rather long and inelegant title of “As Caribbean T-20 starts, Guyana’s cricket asks “if not, why not?” in the Sports Section of Kaieteur News January 8, 2012
I am not surprised that the article in question is just as confusing and unenlightening as its title.
Frankly, this is the first time that I have been forced to read anything by Colin Croft. The crass language, incomplete sentences and the weird opinions expressed are unworthy of a former Test cricketer and a commentator who has elected to educate the public about the administration and playing of cricket in the region.
Croft must know that cricket writing has been graced by such eminent talents as CLR James, J S Barker, Sir Hilary Beckles, and Tony Cozier, to name a few. These men have raised cricket writing to level of an art that has brought joy, pleasure and education in equal measure to the cricket public in the Caribbean.
On the basis of this article, Croft does not stand a ghost of a chance of entering this distinguished fraternity.
Note that I have chosen not to dwell on the rather crude and unjustified criticisms of Clive Lloyd and the dismissal of the Harper brothers as “blowhards.” I leave it to Croft to decide whether it is good manners to bite the hand of those who have helped his career or to pour scorn on those who are making great sacrifices to promote and develop cricket in Guyana.
But I have noticed that I have wandered away from my main theme. I am sure I will be forgiven, for the foregoing views on some aspects of Croft’s rantings had to be answered. In paragraph fourteen Croft states:
“I thought that Guyana’s first, and last, ‘African-style’ dictator, L. Forbes S. Burnham, that same dark-black guy who paraded down Water Street, seated on a milk white horse, 3:00pm on afternoons, flanked by handlers, a la Robert Mugabe, to ‘admire’ thousands of ‘his people’ lined up, sweating and swearing outside Bookers Ltd, just to buy cheese, had died. Do some like him still exist in Guyana?”
Before I demolish this nonsense let me pause to deal with an editorial matter. Is it possible that the Sports’ Editor of Kaieteur News allowed this inaccurate and tawdry description of LFS Burnham to pass? He should have used his blue pencil to save the Guyanese people from having to confront this atrocity on a good Sunday morning.
If KN aspires, as it says it does, to being the best paper in Guyana it will have to exercise greater and more prudent editorial judgment. It could have begun by a better ordering of Croft’s syntax. And, pray God, when did Mugabe start to ride a horse?
Croft too seems to be lacking in judgment and care for the truth. My father-in-law Mr. LFS Burnham has been accused of many things by his critics but never for owning a ‘milk white horse’ and riding it along Water Street at 3:00 pm to experience a ‘frisson’ over citizens lining up to purchase food.
This is a fantasy born of his hatred of Forbes Burnham, the same Burnham who intervened to enable Clive Lloyd return to the Caribbean and rejoin the West Indies team in 1973.
In a year’s time Lloyd became captain of the regional side and one of the young fast bowlers he nurtured and helped in his Test career is none other than one Colin Croft. If Forbes Burnham, in an inspired moment, did not act swiftly to correct the selector’s folly of leaving out Lloyd from the Test side, Croft might not have had a Test career.
But as I have made it clear, Croft is not a man known for his gratitude.
I am a public health professional and I deal with facts. I am always alarmed by men such as Croft who for reasons of jealousy or hatred bend the facts to serve personal ends.
Dr Richard Van West-Charles

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