– receives sponsorship for Sir Curtly visit

The Berbice Cricket Board, on Friday last, attracted another sponsorship as it forges ahead with its plans for a very active 2022 cricket season despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Board’s president, Hilbert Foster, who also serves as the Manager was able to get Chandradat Chintamani to renew his sponsorship of the Ivan Madray Memorial 20/20 first division tournament.

The sponsorship worth $380,000.00 was handed over to Foster in the Water Street, Georgetown office of Chintamani, who is the General Manager of Muneshwar’s Ltd.

The Madray Cup is one of at least four first division tournaments that the vibrant BCB hopes to ‘run off’ in 2022.

The board has already obtained sponsorship for the Tenelec Inc 50 overs tournament from overseas-based Berbician, Bobby Deonarine, and plans to lobby for a forty overs tournament and another 20/20.

Foster expressed thanks to Chintamani for his support and committed the board to organising a tournament of the highest standard. Chintamani had sponsored the tournament in 2018 and 2019 before the COVID pandemic forced the cancellation in 2020 and 2021.

The teams that would play in the third edition are West Berbice, Blairmont, Police, Tucber Park, Young Warriors, Rose Hall Canje, Albion, Rose Hall Town Thunderbolt Flour, Port Mourant, Upper Corentyne, Skeldon and Berbice River.

The involvement of the Berbice River team would be historic as it would be their first time playing at the first division level in the county.

Foster disclosed that the BCB wants to give all persons across the county the opportunity to develop their potential and as such the riverain team was given the chance to play at the highest level in the county.

Chintamani, in brief remarks, stated that he was very impressed with the development of Berbice cricket and was delighted to contribute to the BCB.

The Berbice-born business executive explained that Madray had played a major role in his early development and, as such, he was pleased to keep Madray’s memory alive by sponsoring the tournament in his name.

Madray was the third Berbician to play test cricket, after John Trim and Rohan Kanhai, He played two test matches in 1958 before migrating to England where he died in 2009 at the age of seventy-five years.

The first two editions were won by Young Warriors CC in 2018 and Rose Hall Town Thunderbolt Flour in 2019, respectively.

Meanwhile, Foster, on Friday last, also collected the $1.3M sponsorship from Dr Frank Den bow for the upcoming Sir Curtly Ambrose visit to Berbice.

Ambrose would be visiting the county from the 9th to 14th of February to conduct three days of fast bowling clinics at the Albion Ground.

The sponsorship was handed over by a representative at the Princess Hotel in Providence and would cover all the cost of the visit including stipend, airline ticket, accommodation, meals etc.

The BCB would also be distributing close to one million dollars worth of cricket balls to the twelve teams that would be playing the Board’s 2022 first division season.

The distribution would be done as part of the BCB Patron Fund , which is financed by Patron Vickram Bharrat, Minister of Natural Resources.

The donation of balls should allow the clubs to play the entire 2022 season.