Kaieteur News
Saturday December 23, 2017
Letter to the Sports Editor
Why are RHTY&SC cricketers being unfairly treated Dear Sir, The Management and Members of the Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club, MS, would be very grateful if the powers of cricket can explain the reasons why two of Berbice’s best cricketers “Eon Hooper and Keon Sinclair are not playing in the current Guyana Cricket Board 50-Overs Franchise Cricket Tournament. We have been quiet over the last few months as our players have been unfairly treated. Despite being one of the best fast bowlers in the three-day format since its formation, Keon Sinclair was not invited or selected for the Upper Corentyne Team with no explanation given. As everyone in Berbice can testify, Keon Sinclair along with Clinton Pestano and Romario Shepherd are the best all round fast bowlers who are brilliant fieldsmen and capable middle order batsmen who have contributed with the bat numerous times for their teams “Rose Hall Town Gizmos & Gadgets and the Upper Corentyne Franchise Team. Only recently against Upper Corentyne he showed his class with a fiery spell of 6 for 29 but he continues to be sidelined for reasons unknown. Keon Sinclair is known for being a committed and disciplined individual and has never once been accused of indiscipline. Eon Hooper in 2016 took the most wickets in the three-day league - 42 and in 2017 took 36 impressive wickets from just five games. Like Keon Sinclair, Hooper is also a brilliant fieldsman and a solid middle order batsman who once opened the batting for Berbice at the junior level. Hooper, who represented Guyana at the Senior level in 2016, was left out for two matches in 2017 for reasons unknown and without a properly laid out discipline structure. To our surprise, he was left out completely of the Upper Corentyne Franchise 20 man squad for the current oneday tournament with no reasons given. We were informed through the grapevine that he was accused of using rude language in the presence of some Berbice Cricket Board executives. Hooper nor the Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club were informed of any allegations of indiscipline, he was never
invited to any discipline meeting much-less given the opportunity to defend any accusation against him. While Hooper is suffering, many others who have committed worse crimes are allowed to play because of their seeming affiliation. The Upper Corentyne Team has players who have never played first division cricket, never came close to a Berbice or Guyana Selection and one who is known as a softball player and an Under-19 player who is totally unknown is regularly in the squad. Meanwhile, outstanding junior cricketers Junior Sinclair, Sylus Tyndall and Keith Simpson, who are very productive in Berbice Cricket, are left out to pasture. The Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club, MS demands justice for our cricketers who are being told openly by certain persons if they want to play for Berbice and Guyana, they have to leave the Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club and join a certain Cricket Club. One Selector is said to have even visited the homes of our junior cricketers and advised them to take their sons out of the Rose Hall Town Youth & Sports Club. Of course, he was rejected. Our players including junior cricketers are targeted for the smallest things and feel that they are being victimized for reasons best known to the Berbice Cricket Board Officials. If any of our players break the discipline code, they should face the full penalty only after the proper hearing where they are given an opportunity to be heard. In closing, we would like to question, how can one team get about thirteen cricketers in a twenty man squad in the Upper Corentyne Franchise League when that same team has not won a single cricket title since 2004 and import players from Georgetown to play first division tournaments. Matches against Rose Hall Town and Albion are postponed until certain players from Georgetown are available. Surely, if you are good enough to be in a Franchise League Team, the highest local cricket tournament then how can you not make your own club team. Concerned Rose Hall Resident.
Taylor voted skipper of T20 Team-of-the-year DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, CMC – West Indies Women captain, Stafanie Taylor, has been named captain of the ICC Women’s Twenty20 Team-of-the-Year. The 26-year-old was one of three West Indies players in the squad with the flamboyant Deandra Dottin and teenaged opener Hayley Matthews also making the XI. Jamaican Taylor is one of the premier batsmen in the women’s game. She has scored just over 4000 runs in 108 One-Day Internationals where she averages 43. She averages 37 from her 80 T20Is that have yielded 2474 runs. In the period under consideration, Taylor scored 266 runs at an average of 53, and currently tops the ICC T20 batting rankings. Dottin, meanwhile, has stood out once
again with her powerful middle order hitting, with a brilliant hundred against Sri Lanka Women last October. She is now the only woman with two T20 hundreds following her exploits during the 2010 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean. Fellow Barbadian Matthews, still on 19years-old, has emerged as the leading women’s bowler and all-rounder over the past year and sits on top both rankings. She scored 163 runs during the period under consideration while taking 10 wickets with her steady off-spin. All three Windies players are currently plying their trade in Australia’s Women’s Big Bash. No West Indies player made the ICC ODI Team-of-the-Year.
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Mohamed’s Enterprise/New Era Entertainment Futsal Semifinals on tonight New Era recognises the contributions of key sponsor Mohamed’s Enterprise
Aubrey Major Jr Director of New Era hands over the plaque to Nazar Mohamed’s, Managing Director of Mohamed’s Enterprise while Kenrick Noel Looks on. Semifinal action in the Mohamed’s Enterprise/New Era Entertainment fourth annual futsal tournament kicks off tonight at the Mackenzie Sports Club (MSC) hard court with both matches as the remaining four teams seek ascension into the final and a step closer to the $500,000 grand cash prize. Hard knocks will play Spaniards at 19:30hrs in the first semifinal, while Silver Bullets will come against NK Ballers at 21:30hrs in the feature match of the night that will see the finalists decided for the Boxing Night final at the same MSC hard court venue. In addition to the half-million purse the winners will walk away with, the second place finishers will receive $150,000 and third place will pocket $50,000. Adding to the excitement tonight will be three exhibition matches that will include an under- 15 matchup in the first game, while the second exhibition will be played between Broad Money Hard Knocks and Spaniard and
the third game will be between the promoters and referees affair. During the week, Aubrey Major Jr handed over a plaque of appreciation to Mohamed’s Enterprise on behalf of New Era Entertainment and the Linden community for their continued contribution to sport and development in the “mining town”. Fans are being reminded by the promoters of the Bakewell promotion that will see two lucky futsal patrons winning a Flat screen television and a Refrigerator on the day of the final. According to the organizers, for a chance to win the prizes, patrons must submit three Bakewell bread or tennis rolls plastic bags with their name and telephone number in envelopes and submit them at participating stores. However, in order to win, participants must be present at the drawing on boxing night, during the futsal finals at the MSC hard court.
IOC bans 11 Russian winter athletes for life for Sochi 2014 doping ZURICH (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee said yesterday it had banned 11 Russian athletes for life after they committed doping offences at the 2014 Sochi winter games. Among them are speed skaters Ivan Skobrev, a two-time medalist at the Vancouver 2010 Games, and Artem Kuznetcov. Along with lugers Tatyana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko, who both won silver medals in Sochi, cross-country skiers Nikita Kryukov, Alexander Bessmertnykh —both silver medallists— and Natalia Matveeva, bobsledders Liudmila Udobkina and Maxim Belugin, and ice hockey players Tatiana Burina and Anna Shchukina, they were disqualified from the events they took part in. They were also stripped of their medals and banned from future Olympic events, the IOC Disciplinary Commission said. The decision is part of an IOC investigation into doping of Russian athletes at the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Earlier this month the IOC banned Russia from next year’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics for what it called “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping
system. Investigations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC confirmed allegations of widespread doping among Russian athletes across many sports as well as tampering with Russian athletes’ samples during the Sochi 2014 winter Games. The IOC, however, left the door open for Russian athletes with a clean history of non-doping to be invited to compete in Pyeongchang as neutrals. “To date, the number of cases opened by the (IOC) disciplinary commission (for Sochi 2014) has reached 46 after additional findings from the re-analyses,” the IOC said. It has retested all of the samples from Russian athletes from those Games, banning dozens for life in recent months. “All 46 of them have been handled, of which three have been filed. As some investigations are still ongoing (notably the forensic analysis of the bottles), it cannot be excluded that there might be new elements that would justify opening further new cases and holding more hearings,” it said. The Pyeongchang Olympics run from Feb. 9-25 with Russian athletes competing under the Olympic flag as Olympic athletes from Russia (OAR).