$20 million budget earmarked for GCB one-year development plan

Sep 10, 2009 Sports

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$3 million Regional 20/20 and Super Concert for Providence on Oct 23 & 24

By Sean Devers
President of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetram Singh yesterday told the media that the governing body for cricket in Guyana concedes that the national sport is not heading in the right direction and is intent on reversing that trend with implementation of a one-year plan for which 15-20 million dollars has been budgeted.
“We asked ourselves where we are going and what can be done to stop that trend and one of the first things we did was to try and see if our local competitions cater for our needs. We have set up a special committee to come up with plans to address the decline and it was decided that senior-level cricket, Under-15 cricket and Women’s cricket are the key areas to be addressed,” Singh disclosed.
Singh said that 3-day cricket is most important in the development of proper cricketers and lamented that no county has played 3-day matches in overs 2 years and announced that the GCB intends to step in to resurrect 3-day cricket.
“The GCB will assist Berbice and Demerara in staging a 3-day 1st division competition while a 2-day competition is planned for Essequibo. The winners from the counties will meet in a national play-off which we (GCB) will finance.
Singh, the GCB head since 1991 and a present WICB Director said that 2-innings cricket has to be played since this type of cricket helps youngsters learn to ‘bat long’ and bowl to take wickets instead of just being economical.

“We are now being overrun by limited overs cricket and we (GCB) want to put back some excitement in 3-day cricket and give the players something to play for. We have already committed at least $1 million in prize money for this competition,” Singh revealed.
Singh opined that while working to improve the senior level is critical to Guyana’s success at the regional level, Under-15 cricket is just as important since this is where it all starts in the production of international players.
“We have had discussions with the Education Ministry among others and we will be running off our school’s Under-15 in the counties before arriving at a national play-off and the same will be done at the club level.
Since we took over school cricket we have had some hiccups and we are working on correcting all the flaws. A problem we had was with coaching and umpires and we have ensured that all of the competing schools this year will have access to qualified coaches,” Singh said.
He added that another problem has been umpires for the matches and said that the GCB will fund the cost of umpires, balls, lunches and traveling from the district level while as an incentive, the coach of the winning district in the national school’s competition will be appointed national Under-15 coach for next year’s regional youth tournament.
An Under-19 schoolgirl competition will also commence later in the year to help with preparations for next year’s regional Under-19 female tournament while it was disclosed that girls will also be allowed to participate in the male school competition if they are good enough.
The school’s Under-15 competition is scheduled to commence on Wednesday while the national final is fixed for November 27. Singh said that about 40 teams should participate in the female school competition and that gear will be available at each match for the players to use.
Singh said that the GCB will focus on Women’s cricket which generated plenty of interest during the last regional women’s competition in Guyana.
“A big problem is that most clubs don’t have women’s teams and we are encouraging the counties to form 2 or 3 teams so that we can have a regular competition going among 7 or 8 teams throughout the year. This should get others interested and more girls should get involved. If there is no sponsor for a national female competition we will stand the cost,” Singh informed.
‘I have been saying that if there is no sponsor we will stand the cost for the various competitions and we have budgeted 15-20 million for the first phase (1st year) which will start shortly. We will be holding fund-raising activities which will go along with what we already have in the Bank,” Singh explained.
Fund Raiser:
The first fund raiser is to be the 2-day Guyana Cricket Festival at the Guyana National Stadium on Friday October 23 and Saturday October 24.
The Festival, which will culminate with a Super Concert after the final on the Saturday night, will involve the national teams of Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana along with a USA side of Guyanese players.
The winning team will take home $2 million dollars while several other attractive cash prizes will be up for grabs in the 20/20 competition which will see 2 semi-finals on the first day and the final under lights on the next day.
Marketing Manager of the GCB Ramsay Ali explained that for the GCB’s developmental plan to be successful is has to be sustained and not die away after a year or 2.
This he said can only happen once there is money to keep the programme going which means that fund raising activities will be important ventures.
Ali informed that Carib Beer, Digicel and El Dorado are the premier sponsors of the Guyana Cricket Festival and announced that advertisement of the event will commence shortly.
“We have gotten very good response from the business community for this 20/20 competition and I can already say that 4 TV stations, including NTN and LRTV in Berbice have agreed to give us a free add for each one that we run on their station,” Ali informed.
Ali said that being conservative; the GCB is aiming to make $15 million from the 20/20 event and Super Concert at the Stadium.
Singh also informed that 20/20 cricket is the ideal tool to bring in revenue for the development of 2 innings cricket since most sponsors are more willing to get involved in the fast-paced version of the game which presents a festive atmosphere. The GCB head also disclosed that it has been discussed at the WICB level that since more and more players are being tempted to leave official cricket for private 20/20 matches, contracts will be given to at least 14 players in each territory to have some control over their local players.
“We have seen players leave official cricket to play in private competitions there is nothing that we (GCB) can do about that. We will now contract at least 14 players from next year to prevent this from happening. This is in addition to the 15 players we have on contract through sponsors Digicel,” the Guyanese WICB Director explained.
Ali asked the media for their support by helping to promote the Guyana Cricket Festival and Super Concert and by covering local competitions.

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