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Veteran cricketer releases new book
Veteran Berbice cricketer and life-member of the Berbice Cricket Board of Control, Mortimer George of Sheet Anchor, Canje has released the completed edition of his book ‘A time in our history: Berbice Cricket, 1939-2012’.
George was first associated with the Board in 1964 when he attended his first meeting. He actively served on the board from 1966-1983 in multiple positions including that of Honorary Secretary from 1976-1983. In 1987, he was honoured with life membership of the Board, the third person to be so honoured and in 2008, he was again honoured with the prestigious Heroes Award.
Following the death of the past BCB President, Mr. Leslie Amsterdam in 1999, the other two life members, Lennox Phillips, Ancell Hazel and George thought of a way of paying tribute to Amsterdam since he had done so much for Guyana and more particularly, Berbice cricket and that his story needed to be told.
“I was assigned the task of gathering the information–I contacted our main sports reporter at the time, Shan Razack and I got some information from him– and I started the task of compiling it”. His task changed from compiling information about Amsterdam to a complete review of Berbice cricket.
“In November 2010, our first publication was made”, he said.
“A time in our History: Berbice Cricket, 1939-2010” was first released in 2010, the first edition by George. In July of this year, the completed version was finished and released.
“What we have done with the first version is that we have made a few corrections, re-organised the book, added some more ‘meat’ to some of the chapters and we have created a new chapters– 13 chapters– in addition, 25 new pages”.
The book, he noted, “is historical, unique in content and style; it is brimful of interest; it is well- researched, but most of all, it is educational”. “We hope that you will pick up a copy”, he said.
Mortimer George
The major new information in this completed version of the book, he noted, is a list of the Berbice County Senior Team Captains from 1950- 2010.
He noted that it was no easy job to get this information, “plus Chapter 12 is very insightful and among the recommendations there are for the West Indies Cricket Board and Players’ Association to get together in the interest of stakeholders and come to some compromise in this confusion that they have and also there is a call for the organisers of the game to substitute the 20/20 format for the three- day and four- day formats which is more likely to develop our cricketers rather than having batsmen go there and giving away their wickets. You have batsmen who would go there and learn to build on innings– bowlers who will learn to bowl out a batsman and get them out instead of a batsman going and slash and lash and burn”.
The book is readily available at Gordon’s Book Store in New Amsterdam; Berbice Cricket Board Office, Cheddi Jagan Street, New Amsterdam or Austin’s Book Services, 90 Church Street, Georgetown for $2,500, “value for your money”.
“According to former President, secretary, representative of the West Indies Cricket Board and former Regional Selector, Mr. Joe Solomon, this book is a masterpiece– do not miss it”.
George has approached the Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth and Sports to adopt the book and make it readily available to students in the school system and for sports.
As a Lifetime member of the BCB, George stated that it is not his intention to criticise the board in public, “but there are some things that need to be done and a tremendous effort is being made especially by the special events committee and the competitions committee but there is always– when you have been there for some while, you are able to see things that need to be done and what I spoke about, the substitution of the 20/20 format for the longer format is one of those things”.
The sponsors, he stated, need to be told– “yes we welcome your sponsorship but we reserve the right to say where we will challenge your sponsorship; we are engaged in the development of the game and my view is that the 20/20 format is for the older players who are seasoned, like on the WI Test scene for people like Samuels and Gayle who have been there for over 40 test matches– experienced– and they can transform from one format to the other easily; the younger players are unable to transform and this is disastrous for cricket”.
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