No Guyanese in Windies women’s team an indictment on local female cricket structure

May 14, 2017 Sports

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Says Sean Devers

The news that no Guyanese were selected on the West Indies Women’s team for the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in England next month is a serious indictment to the structure and development of female Cricket in Guyana.
Tremayne Smartt, Shemaine Campbell and Erva Giddings are the present West Indies players but they all lost their places on the regional team. This is disappointing but not totally unexpected to those who follow cricket in Guyana.
The only County that plays female hardball cricket is Berbice, but the top players are forced to play with Male teams. Only Rose Hall Town has a female team.
In Demerara the only activity on the field for the players is ‘underhand softball cricket’ while in Essequibo, the biggest supporter of the GCB, there is no female cricket yet an Essequibo team is picked.
Faizul Bacchus is the Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB) President and has taken over from GCB President Dru Bahadur who resigned after he replaced Ramsay Ali who also resigned which raises a red flag that all is not well in the Board.
Essequibo’s cricket is in a colossal mess and one wonders why the ECB continues to support the GCB which does very little for the County and has not put any proper system to help Essequibo improve.
It is embarrassing and a waste of money to have the Essequibo team compete in the Women’s inter-county tournament since some of the girls said they had never played cricket before. This begs the question who on Bacchus’s Board selected them?
If inter-county female teams are selected the GCB must ensure that competitions are played in each county. If that is not done then the same ‘known’ players will be recycled and the good players will lose form due to lack of competitive cricket.
I organised with Mr. Hilbert Foster for National and Demerara player, 17-year-old Mandy Mangru, to play at Rose Hall Town because that was the only opportunity for her to play any cricket.
There is lots of money now in Women’s cricket but the Guyanese are being stifled by a Board which shows no vision for the development of female cricket in Guyana.
Meanwhile, former Test pacer Colin Stuart, the Board’s TDO, is fast losing credibility with some of his decisions and his explanation on why the GCB nominated Jaguars Assistant Coach Rayon Griffith for Coach of the year ahead of Head Coach Esaun Crandon, was almost laughable.
He posted the explanation on my facebook page after I had questioned the nomination on one of my posts.
The story was picked up by another reporter from another Newspaper who also questioned the nomination and asked Stuart what were the criteria for nominating a cricket Journalist of the year (print) and why the GCB did not nominate anyone. Stuart is yet to answer those questions.
Stuart reportedly spearheaded the decision not the play any of the Inter-County U-17 matches outside of the city, claiming it was due to a lack of funds.
Stuart was told to call Mr. Imam Bacchus in connection with playing one of the Essequibo matches at the spacious Imam Bacchus ground on the Essequibo Coast. The ground has one of the best pitches and is the second best ground in Guyana after the Providence Stadium.
There is the ECB Hostel in Essequibo where the teams could be accommodated and Mr. Bacchus would have looked after all other costs once Demerara or Berbice arrived there. Stuart never called.
Stuart was also in charge of the GCB and Ministry of Education Secondary School’s cricket tournament. In the preliminary rounds the standard of the cricket was so low that some of the players, who played with an assortment of colored clothes, did not know how to hold a bat.
The ‘pelting’ was so bad that a former International Umpire remarked that “if we were to take off bowlers who threw then many games would not have been played because there would not have been bowlers to bowl.”
It seems as if Stuart has found himself in a compromising position and losing the respect of many who know the University scholar.
I read with amusement a story in this newspaper in which a senior GCB executive stated, “At the secondary schools level they are channeled into cricket clubs in their areas where their training and coaching continues.”
That is totally misleading since the GCB never sent a single Coach to any school to help before the tournament commenced.
When I played school cricket the National players would go to the schools to Coach and teach Teachers about the basics of cricket and would pick the school team.
Now that most of the National players are contracted it should be easier. Stuart was told about this but seemed not too interested once the GBC could say they played off a school’s tournament despite how it was played and how low the standard was. The story was headlined “Jaguars’ titles a Testament of GCB Successful Development Programmes”.
The GCB’s National Franchise league was indeed a good initiative with a few flaws and the excellent training sessions of the squad along with the Academy players, helped towards the successful title defence.
But the main reason why the Jaguars were so successful was because very few Guyanese were selected for the West Indies or for the several t20 Leagues around the world.
They had the same group of players for most of that period and a pair of hard working Coaches in Esaun Crandon and his assistant Rayon Griffith and were led by Leon Johnson, arguable the best Captain in the Region.
Although the other teams were weakened by the loss of their key players for various reasons including verbal and legal fights with the Administrators, the Jaguars lost twice to last placed teams and did not dominate as they had done in the previous two years.
Only two batsmen reached centuries, the openers failed to give the team consistent starts, too many catches were dropped and too many bad balls were bowled especially by the spinners. What was encouraging was that the pacers (Joseph, Reifer, Shepherd and Paul) took the bulk of the wickets this season.
But this had little to do with the GCB, which is doing very little to prepare proper pitches that would encourage fast bowling and making very little effort to work with West Indies ‘A’ team pacer Ronsford Beaton on the technical and mental aspects of his game.
The WICB First-Class tournament is the lowest standard of all the Test playing nations and a century at this level is 40 in Test cricket. That is why Guyanese players continue to struggle at Test level despite doing well enough at Regional level to make the Test team.
If they really want to improve they should try to play in England even if it’s in League cricket.
Last but not least, one wonders why the Attorney General Basil Williams and Sports Minister Nicolette Henry are seemingly reluctant to get an early hearing on the ‘Guyana Cricket Administration Act’ case or have the injunction quashed.
After a challenge to the Guyana Cricket Administration Act 2014 by the GCB, the then Chief Justice (Ag) Ian Chang issued an order that prevented any elections of the GCB and its membership until the substantive matter is heard.
Until this is done Guyana’s cricket will continue to be in limbo.

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