FOLLOWING heavy overnight and early morning showers which covered the entire Georgetown and its environs yesterday, many sporting venues were left under water, with some close to a dept of eight inches.
One such venue, is the Lance Gibbs Street, Queenstown based Demerara Cricket Club (DCC), known as ‘Home of the Legends’ and venue for today’s first round clash between Essequibo and Berbice in the Guyana Cricket Board/Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company/Hand-in-Hand Insurance Company sponsored four-day tournament.The other first round encounter is scheduled for the Enmore Community Centre ground on the East Coast of Demerara, where in the Leon Johnson led Demerara, who are the defending champions, were set to go head to head with Presidents XI, led by Vishal Singh.
However, the heavy showers left DCC under water and Enmore as well, even though covers were in place at both venues.
In an invited comment from the Secretary of the GCB and Director of the West Indies Cricket Board, Anand Sanasie, Chronicle Sport learnt that it is the GCB’s intentions to have four days of cricket when the tournament commences.
“We are looking at the weather and when we start this tournament, our aim is to give the guys four days of cricket without a washout, since our team to represent Guyana in the Regional four-day tournament would be selected from this tournament,” said Sanasie.
Meanwhile, Demerara’s skipper and Guyana and West Indies’ ‘A’ team middle order batsman, Leon Johnson, and his counterpart from the President’s XI, Vishal Singh, said they were disappointed at the rescheduled start, taking into consideration the confidence level amongst the team.
“It is nothing that we can control. We all know that the weather is always like this at this time of the year, coming onto December.
“I know the guys would be disappointed as I am, since we were all looking forward to playing especially after the practice session we had on Tuesday which was decent until the rain intervened, but as I said before, it is nothing that we have control over,” said Johnson.
Singh, whose side comprises players from Berbice and Demerara, who found it difficult to make their Inter-county team, supported Johnson, adding that his guys were looking to go out there and take the fight to the defending champions early.
Written By Calvin Roberts