… BCB files protest over controversial conclusion of Essequibo match
HEAVY, early morning showers flooded certain areas of Georgetown including the Police Sports Club, Eve Leary ground, the venue for the final preliminary round match in this year’s Guyana Cricket Board (GCB)/GTM Under-19 three-day competition between defending champions Berbice and Demerara yesterday. Such a natural dilemma prevented any play on the first day between the two teams who are on 6 and 12 points respectively and with two days remaining and overcast conditions hovering over the Garden City late yesterday afternoon, the possibility of play commencing today seems remote.
But if play is possible then Berbice would have to emulate Demerara, who defeated Essequibo inside two days, by coming away with a win within the same time frame if they intend to retain their three- day championship.
Meanwhile, Chronicle Sport was reliably informed that the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) has lodged an official protest with the GCB, with regard to the controversial conclusion of their second round match against Essequibo last Tuesday at the Anna Regina Community Centre ground.
According to the BCB Public Relations Officer (PRO) Hilbert Foster, the BCB was looking to pull its team following the dubious decision by the on-field umpire, who pulled stumps in fairly good conditions at a time when the Berbice team needed 13 more runs to achieve a come-from-behind victory, and wants the GCB to address certain allegations.
“We are asking the GCB to review the conduct of the match officials especially the umpires and the match referee during our team’s second round match against Essequibo. The last hour’s play is the area of concern for us, as the home team only bowled seven of the mandatory 15 in 49 minutes.
The BCB is asking why the umpires allowed the Essequibo team to deliberately slow down the match and no penalty was given to them. We are quite concerned that the umpires pulled stumps despite the willingness of the batsmen to continue batting in the conditions.”
Why are neutral umpires not used at the Inter-county game and was the match referee a qualified individual to execute such duties are two of the questions being asked by the BCB, whose officials decided to continue participation in the tournament, but under protest.
The BCB is also questioning the postponement of the senior female Inter-county team at a time when two of their players would have been away on West Indies duties, especially when both Berbice and Demerara had selected their teams at least two weeks before the commencement of the tournament.
“When a sponsor invests his or her money into a tournament, they expect to see the best players participate in same and Berbice were unable to field same, as both Shemaine Campbell and Erva Giddings were away on West Indies duties.
According to the fixtures received, the female tournament would have been played long before their departure and suddenly it was pushed back without any positive reason and this hampered our chances as we lost the services of those two key players, with Campbell already identified to lead the team,” stated Foster.