“What exactly is wrong with Guyana’s cricket?”

Apr 20, 2014 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft
The last time that I represented Guyana in 1st class cricket was 1981/82, when West Indies did not have any “home” series, and Test players appeared for their regional teams.
Also, I have not lived in Guyana since 1980, when I moved to Florida, via Trinidad & Tobago.
With that background, I am positive that I am as out of Guyana’s cricket loop as a boxed kite without wood, cellophane paper or string!
But, as a former Guyana and WI player who has done as much as most, probably more too, who still has bowling records in Guyana and WI cricket, I ask the obvious question:

What has gone wrong with Guyana’s cricket as regards WI regional cricket overall?
From the outside, it looks as if Guyana’s cricket is meandering into outright purgatory!
Guyana’s cricket is not, presently, any different than that of much maligned Leeward Islands, yet LI ended above Guyana in the recently concluded 2014 regular round-robin 4-day competition.
Looking at results for 2014, well presented by Adriel “Woody” Richards and/or Imran Khan, WICB’s Media Communication Officers, Guyana is the only team not to have won any of its six games in the recent fracas.
This is not just worrying, but downright disgraceful, when one considers that Guyana could boast, like all territories in WICB’s cricket, to have the same, if not more, talent than most regional entities.
Since that is so, then the only other area to investigate is the management of Guyana’s cricket by Guyana’s Cricket Board.  Surely they cannot be pleased with what has transpired in this year’s regional season!
I put much trust in reports in Guyana’s newspapers by Sean Devers, former Guyana youth off-spinner who has done an excellent job so far as a sports journalist specializing in covering regional cricket.
Much of what Devers writes on Guyana’s cricket turmoil not only rankles but makes one with general pride in Guyana’s cricket, like me, cringe.
Apparently the internal politics of Guyana’s cricket has to be experienced to be believed!
Last week, a “Letter to the Sports Editor” in one of Guyana’s newspapers complained bitterly that one important arm of Guyana’s internal cricket was not only illegally manifested, but still exists and openly operates anyway, since that seems to be standard way in that country’s cricket.
That letter was not written by Devers, but by, like me, a very concerned Caribbean cricket supporter.
In 2012, the Government of Guyana attempted to circumvent and undermine the running of Guyana’s cricket, to take over its operations, with an astronomically poorly thought out process and modus operandi, naming an Interim Management Committee, headed by former WI captain Clive Lloyd.
At that exact time, Lloyd was also Chairman of International Cricket Council’s Cricket Committee.
Everyone knew that ICC had specifically decreed in its by-laws that no government or political interference would be adhered to, or indeed condoned, in any country’s running of its cricket.
Quite honestly, to this very day, I am still at a desperate loss to comprehend why Clive Lloyd would have allowed himself to be so caught up in that unadulterated mess, and not be able to see the severe road-blocks ahead, political or otherwise, that that IMC would have caused with both WICB and ICC!
WICB and ICC waded in quickly, correctly decreeing that if that IMC, a de-facto Guyana government coup d’etat on GCB’s overseeing its cricket, then games scheduled for Guyana would be staged elsewhere.
In quicker time than it took for that blood red moon to disappear (lunar eclipse) after earth’s shadow interfered with rays of the sun playing on our nearest planet, the IMC also disappeared.
The moon’s “Tetrad” of four eclipses will continue over the next two years, but if Guyana’s cricket does not improve in that period, then WICB should consider intervening in Guyana’s cricket, for its own good.
This last year has been totally dismal for regional cricket from “The Land of many waters”, which had produced Hooper, Chanderpaul, Butcher, Sarwan, Solomon, Kanhai, Lloyd, Gibbs, Fredericks, Harper, Butts, Kallicharran and yours truly, etc.
This is not about insularity, but has it occurred to anyone yet that there were no Guyanese in West Indies men’s squad to ICC WT-20 last month?
It has been years since Guyana last won WICB’s 4-day competition but many would still remember that it was Guyana which won that inaugural R. Allen Stanford 20-20 competition in 2006/7.
Narsingh Deonarine’s six over a left-handed cow-corner off world’s No. 1 T-20 bowler, Samuel Badree, as Guyana beat Trinidad & Tobago with one delivery remaining, still resonates for Guyana’s then players.
Guyana also won the inaugural Caribbean T-20 in 2009/10, when they beat Barbados in T&T, again with one delivery remaining, thanks to Jonathan Foo’s whirlwind big-hitting.
The greatest irony is that Davendra Bishoo, who was not even originally selected for last weekend’s game v T&T, but had a record 15 wicket haul in that same game, was also voted “Man of the series” back in 2009/10.
Yet, this guy cannot get into any team on merit!
Something stinks here.  What is really going on in Guyana’s cricket?  Enjoy!

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