Guyana could lose One-Day international status - GCB secretary
By Donovan Matthews
"THE minimum is that Guyana will not get a ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL for a very long time". The words of the secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB), Bish Panday, after a pitch invasion by hundreds of spectators at the GCC ground caused International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Raman Subba Row to declare the Fifth Cable and Wireless One-Day International between West Indies and Australia a tie. With four runs needed after the last ball of the 30-over match, Australian captain Steve Waugh hit a Keith Arthurton delivery to wide long-on and managed to scamper two runs with Shane Warne before the return came into the bowler's end. Under normal circumstances the West Indies would have triumphed by one run but from the time the ball left the bat the crowd started to run on to the field and had reached the pitch by the time the return came. After looking at television replays of the incident with captains Steve Waugh and Jimmy Adams, managers Clive Lloyd (West Indies) and Steve Bernard (Australia), the umpires and officials of the GCB, Match Referee Ramon Subba Row declared the match a tie. This development brought back memories of 1993 when the One-Day International here between West Indies and Pakistan was declared a tie, by the same match referee, when another crowd invasion took place. Panday condemned the crowd behaviour as very poor and said there is a possibility of Guyana hosting a Test, but not a One-Day. He said although it was a small band of people who invaded the field they had given Guyana a bad name and tarnished the country's image for a very long time. The secretary also said it was very sad since the GCB spent a long time preparing for the match. The clearly upset Panday said, "Other places got more than one match. We got one and spent a long time preparing for it, and in just about five or 10 seconds all the good work that we did was just destroyed." "I am not optimistic that the Guyanese public will see international cricket, in Georgetown, for a long while." Almost one hour passed before the decision to declare the match a tie was taken, after which the players left the ground thus cancelling the presentation ceremony.
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