Ron Legall weighs in on the Sarwan issue

Sep 16, 2010 Sports

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DEAR MR.EDITOR,
After I saw the caption RE- “Sarwan Snubbed “on the back page of the Wednesday’s Edition (September,1st,2010) of the Stabroek News Papers, I decided to read the article and whilst reading it ,I observed that the West Indies Cricket Board had announced that the central retainer contract for Messrs Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine and Travis Dowlin had not been renewed but Messrs Andre Fletcher, Devon Smith and Keiron Pollard had been offered similar contracts for the new period from the 1st October 2010 to the 30th September 2011. I then decided to check the Batting averages of the top current ten WICB players in Test Cricket and One-Day Internationals and my findings are as follows:-

( A )                                 TEST CRICKET

Player                   MAT      RUNS     AVG       100″s        50″s
1 S. Chanderpaul     126      8,969        49.28        22           54
2 R. Sarwan              83      5,759        41.73        15           31
3 D. Bernard ( jnr )     3        202        40,40         –               3
4 C. Gayle                88      6,007        40.31        12           33
5 B. Nash                 15         889        37.04         2             6
6 A .Barath                2          139        34.75        1             –
7 D. Bravo                37      2,175        32.46        3             13
8 T. Dowlin                6         343         31.18        –               3
9 N. Deonarine           8          370        30.83        –               2
10 D,Smith                31      1,315        24.81        1              4

( B )                               O.D.I
PLAYER             MAT   RUNS    AVG      100″s   50″s   S/R
1 R Sarwan          156     5,098       43.94        4       33         77.52
2 S,Chanderpaul 261     8,648       41.17       11      59         71.11
3 C.gayle             217      7,830      39.74       19       41         83.71
4 R.Morton           56      1,519      33.75         2       10         66.36
5 N.Deonarine     20         510      31.87         –         4         69.48
6 B.Nash                9         104      26.00         –         –          73.75
7 T.Dowlin            11        228      25.33          1        1         65.51
8 D.Smith              32          681     24.32         –        3          69.63
9 D.Sammy            43         508      24.19         –        2          95.16
10 D.Bravo          107     1 ,715      25.15         1       5          82.13

(C)                                 Comments
1. Messrs Ramnaresh Sarwan, Travis Dowlin and Narsingh Deonarine are 2nd, 8th and 9th respectively in the listings of the top ten in Test matches whilst Mr. D. Smith is in the 10th position. It seems as though the WICB is giving priority to players when they are from the bottom rather than when they are higher up in the listings.
2. In the ODI, Messrs Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine and Travis Dowlin are 1st, 5th and 7th respectively whilst Mr. Devon Smith is in the 8th position, again these Guyana Players are higher in the listings than MR Devon Smith. Messrs Andre Pollard and Keiron Pollard could even find a place in the top ten in the ODI matches because their averages were-17.06 and19.92 respectively further they have not played Test cricket as yet.
3. I believe that we need effective representation from our WICB two representatives when these matters are been discussed at their meetings.
4. I am also calling on the Minister of Sports of Guyana to write the West Indies Cricket Board   and asked them to outline what criteria they are using to offer these contracts to the players so that the cricketing public could be very clear on this system. It was reported in our news papers that the Minister of Sport for Trinidad and Tobago will be making a similar inquiry as regards to the non renewal of Mr. D. Ramdin’s central retainer contract.
5. In addition to the statistical information stated above, MR R.SARWAN won three prestigious awards in the year 2009 although he was unfortunately injured in the said year and they were as follows:-
(a) The cricketer of the year for W.I.P.A
(b) The Senior Cricketer of the year for Guyana
(c) The Sportsman of the year for Guyana
He could not have won these awards if he didn’t perform very well in the matches he played in 2009 and to achieve these performances, one has to be fit physically. Further he just lead the Guyana Senior Team to victory in the inaugural 20/20 Tournament held in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.  As a result of the team’s marvelous performance and his astute leadership, they are presently competing in a high profile 20/20 Tournament in South Africa.
6. When the West Indies Cricket Board announced that Messrs Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine and Travis Dowlin central retainer contract had not been renewed, to my mind, it was very discomforting and demoralizing because these players were seriously preparing for Airtel Championship 20/20 Tournament in South Africa therefore when the three senior Executives of the Guyana Cricket Board-Messrs Bissoondyal Singh, Claude Raphael and Ronald Williams had publicly condemned the time when the announcement was made, it was very comforting and motivating to the players because they had realized that at least some of their Executives are supporting them. So I don’t agree with those persons who wrote articles in the newspapers condemning these brave Gentlemen.
7. After I looked at the composition of the touring party that was selected to travel to the present Tournament in South Africa I realized that the Technical Staff needed a seasoned and very experienced coach to work along with the national coach, Mr. R. Seeram. Therefore one of the Administrative Officials should not have been included in the maximum list of twenty-three persons which were allowed to be on the traveling party by the authorities responsible for the Tournament. My omission and inclusion would have been the Secretary, MR A. Sanasie and MR R, Harper respectively. My reasons are as follows;-
(a) The Secretary would not have much work to do at the Tournament, because the team has a Manager, who is Mr. C, Moore, and he is capable of performing all the Administrative duties.
(b)  MR R. Harper is a level 3 coach which is a very high grade in the coaching fraternity. He served with distinction as one of the leading coaches in the defunct Shell Academy for West Indies Cricketers which was located in Grenada. He also served as the West Indies Cricket Coach for the Senior Team. He had a coaching stint for two years with the Kenya’s Government. And also he did short stints of coaching with previous National Teams. So MR Harper should have been selected to be on the touring party as the supportive coach to Mr. R. Seeram.
Ron Legall
Statistician/Secretary (CDC)

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