Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 01, 2019 Sports
By Sean Devers
At a time when the lack of real interest in Sports by the Government (both present and past), Chairman of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) competitions Committee Shawn Massiah
hopes for Government support for cricket in the City to remain relevant.
The unavailability of grounds due to a number of reasons is making it difficult for GCA tournaments being completed in the same calendar year.
In addition to their eight competitions and a club outreach/clinic and seminar, the GCA intends to place more focus on young girls and Women’s Cricket in 2019.
The disappearance of playable grounds began when the PPP/C were in power as they built schools on cricket grounds, while not maintaining several state owned grounds and the lack of playable venues in the GT continued with two state owned grounds in Thomas lands being left in an unplayable state; Public Service Union (where Inter-County cricket was played) and the Transport Sports Club (TSC).
To compound the problem, the City Clubs (many with dwindling membership) rented their grounds for non-cricket events on cricket days.
“It was a challenged to get competitions completed because grounds were unavailable for social activities, the inclement weather, Umpires Seminars and Local Government Elections which made the Police and GDF teams unavailable,” the GCA Executive informed.
Massiah listed a number of suggestions to help keep GT’s cricket alive starting with writing to the relevant Minister asking for assistance in upgrading grounds.
“We have sand in galore, several grounds need upgrading one such is the Transport & General Sports Club Ground on Thomas Road Thomas Lands. This ground is unused since 2005, while Malteenoes needs sand and mud for their all-weather practice facility to be completed,” Massiah stated.
“Looking into the new year and onwards I would like to suggest a number of things:
1. All the clubs’ executives or Presidents to have a meeting and then write a letter to the Minister of Finance and Culture Youth and Sports asking them him for a waiver on your clubs Electricity and water bills remembering that all sports club are non-profit making organization.
2. Write to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Culture Youth and Sport and the Director of Sports asking for help in employing grounds men and have them on their payroll and send at least two to each club to work two days per week to help in the up keep of grounds and pitches and send Coaches to the Schools.
3. Write to the Sports Minister and Director of Sports asking for the ministry to acquire much need machinery for each club such as Motorized Roller, Motorized Grass Cutter, adequate Rubberized Covers and other necessary tools and equipment so as to make the groundsmen’s work easier and quicker. Gone are the days of pulling rollers to prepare pitches.
4. Write to the Minister of Finance asking him to include in his Sports budget for Clubs subventions to the tune of (1,000,000) one million dollars Per year to start with. Clubs in Georgetown are struggling to keep afloat with the heavy bills, Lunches, Tea, Balls, curator’s salaries, caretaker’s salaries, staff salaries, weeding of their grounds on a weekly basis to help keep our children occupied in Sports which will keep them away from crime,” suggested Massiah .
The drainage around DCC, Transport, MSC and GCC needs cleaning, while grounds in the East Ruimveldt, Hadfield Street, South Ruimveldt, Sophia and the University of Guyana are in desperate need of upgrading.
“These non-functional grounds are hampering youths from being meaningful occupied. There is a lot more I can say on cricket grounds and youths. These are some of my suggestion and I would really like to see the Government of the day do something soon,” lamented Massiah, who is also the Captain of TSC.
This could be wishful thinking especially in a year that Elections could be held by March since Politicians will be busy campaigning.
But it was not all doom and gloom as eight competitions (some which began in 2017) were completed in 2018 with several players, among them Berbicians and Essequibians, registering outstanding performances in GCA matches.
“We have seen several players who have performed in our GCA Competitions gone on by leaps and bounds to the highest level of cricket, some of these players started from our peewee league and under 15 competitions.
The 2018/2019 NBS 2nd division 40-over competition, played with coloured clothing and the semi-finals and Final should be played under the lights at DCC. The Under 19 Competition will be played when the new season starts on January 12.
Massiah said the GCA is the heart beat of Cricket in Demerara and produced quality players who represented Georgetown, Demerara, Guyana and West Indies in 2018.
Keemo Paul, Sherfane Rutherford (DCC) and Chanderpaul Hemraj (Everest) made their Windies senior debuts in 2018, while Vishaul Singh (GCC) played for Windies A.
Leon Johnson (GCC), Raymon Reifer (GCC),Tagenarine Chanderpaul (Everest), Shiv Chanderpaul (Everest) Chris Barnwell (DCC), Trevon Griffith (DCC), Akshaya Persaud (Everest) and Ricardo Adams (Police) all played for the Jaguars in 2018.
The DCC pair of Ashmead Nedd and Sachin Singh were among four Guyanese selected in a Windies U-19 Camp, while DCC dominated with six titles including the Carib Beer first division T20 at Bourda in March and GCA’s GISE, Star Party Rental & Trophy Stall Two-Day First Division at Eve Leary in November.
A Man-of-the-Match performance from Raymond Perez, who hit five fours and a six in his 40-ball 54, led DCC to a six-run win as Robin Bacchus’s 40-ball 55 could only take GCC to 149-7 when their overs expired.
Akshaya Persaud and Barnwell (172) had the most runs, while Devon Lord and Trevon Garraway (7) had the most wickets in the tournament.
At Eve Leary, Barnwell’s third century of the tournament and a match haul of 9-40 by left-arm back-of-the-hand spinner Totaram Bishun led defending Champions DCC to an Innings and 66 runs win against Police in the final of the Two-Day First Division Cricket tournament.
Christopher Deonarine (GYO) scored the most runs (362 Runs avg. 120.67) while his club mate Trevon France took the most wickets (20 wkts avg 12).
GCC’s Renaldo Ali-Mohammed dominated the second division, while MSC Skipper was also among the outstanding all-rounders at that level.
DCC also won the NBS 2nd division 40-over, the Toucan Industries U-15, the Guyana Diabetics Association’s U-17 and the GCA Tri State U-19 tournaments, while GCC took the Noble House Seafoods 2nd division 2-day, while TSC captured the Vnet U-13.
Massiah thanked the Sponsors of GCA competitions and was high in praise of the members of the GCA and its Competitions Committee for their hard work and all those who have helped the GCA in any way during 2018.
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