The Guyana Cricket Board is the early front-runner for the Sports Association of the Year 2001 after Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) president Chetram Singh gave a detailed account of the board's accomplishments at the sixth annual awards ceremony held at the Umana Yana Tuesday night.

The ceremony held to recognise and reward outstanding performances by the nation's cricketers was witnessed by acting president Samuel Hinds and other ministers of the government, former president Desmond Hoyte, members of the diplomatic corps, former chancellor of the judiciary Cecil Kennard, former Test players Lance Gibbs, Basil Butcher and Joe Solomon and Chief Development Officer of the West Indies Cricket Board Dr Michael Seepersaud.

In what the GCB boss said was "an extremely busy year," Guyana won the Red Stripe Bowl competition and earned the runner-up spots in the Busta Cup, the Busta Invitational Shield and the West Indies under-15 regional competitions.

Singh declared July 4 2001 as a historic day in the annals of Guyana's cricket because of the fact that six local players Carl Hooper, Shiv Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Neil Mc Garrell, Reon King and Colin Stuart played against Zimbabwe in a one-day international.

"Two weeks later," Singh related, "the same six players were in the first Test team."

Singh praised the performances of Hooper, Sarwan, Kevin Darlington, Mahendra Nagamootoo and Mc Garrell in the regional competitions and opined that were it not for a controversial interpretation of the rules Guyana could have won the Busta Cup.

He, however was overjoyed that Guyana was the only regional team to defeat the strong England `A' team which participated in the Busta Invitational Shield competition.

Singh singled out Zaheer Saffie and Tyrell Tull for their performances in the under-15 tournament held in Trinidad but described the performances of the under-19's as the "worst in recent years."

Guyana placed fifth in that competition which was held here.

Singh also disclosed that Narsingh Deonarine, one of five Guyanese to tour England with the Young West Indies team has been named captain of the West Indies under-19 team to participate in next year's Youth World Cup in New Zealand.

And, following their second tour of Guyana in April this year, a Guyana under-15 team has been invited to tour England in August, Singh disclosed.

Singh also touched on developments locally, pointing out that Wales Cricket ground has been upgraded while he said talks on the proposed merger of the GCC, Bourda ground and the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) ground for the 2007 World Cup is still ongoing among the GCB, GCC, GFC, Guyana Football Federation and officials of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.

Singh said he hoped that a final agreement on the proposed infrastructure will be finalised soon so as to facilitate efforts to seek funding for the project.

Singh revealed that voluntary workers can no longer cope with the heavy workload and the GCB plans to advertise for a Chief Eexcutive Officer.

Singh said the GCB has given out 32 ground covers to 16 first division clubs while plans are on to distribute 20 catching cribs to clubs. The GCB continues to buy cricket equipment and re-sell them at cost price.

Singh thanked the many sponsors of the GCB and also the National Sports Commission, the Ministry of Education and Food for the Poor, adding that the GCB was looking towards 2002 with "lots of expectations."