Long-serving Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Secretary Anand Sanasie is focused on bringing a business-like approach to the table as the race heats up for the Cricket West Indies (CWI) Presidency on March 28. Sanasie also noted that the current Ricky Skerritt-administration has become too centralized in Antigua.
“I served with three Presidents. And every one of them have their unique way of doing things. But over the past two years, I felt that the organisation itself became too centralised in Antigua, to the detriment of the territorial boards, who are the shareholders. I do not think that recent business decisions taken were the wise ones, to take us forward. I’m not seeing new revenue streams been established that can really take us out of the hole that we were in,” Sanasie said, in his media breifing on Monday.
He added: “I remember the current incumbent usually, when he wasn’t there, would say just check what Guyana is doing and replicate some of that. We don’t hear that these days. But despite our challenges here, we have done reasonably well. And I think that there is enough expertise in the Region, to get it done by ourselves, and we just not doing it.”
“When the new president came in, we had forecasted that we would have had a bad year. That is without considering the COVID-19 situation. But we have cash in the bank. And we came out of that year doing well. We had like $11 million in the bank, give or take. One of the foremost decisions taken by the new administration was to pay out a $10 million unsecured loan that your organisation has, now in no business would you not try to negotiate that and not have to pay that amount of cash and thereby putting the organisation in a cash crunch,” Sanasie explained.
“These are only some of the things I’m mentioning what I think what I can bring is a business perspective to the organisation. I believe in invest in a grassroot level, so that you will see the result of any action I will take overnight or two years in a tournament. But I think we need to make tough, unpopular decisions if we want to succeed.”
Sanasie went on to cite another instance of internal CWI turbulence, stating, “Another thing I’m hearing COVID that, COVID this. I will tell you in no uncertain terms COVID saved Cricket West Indies. When we took that bad decision of paying off the bank on an unsecured loan, we were already in a crunch. When we forecasted a bad year, it’s because we had two non-lucrative tours, tours where you spent money and you are nothing.” He continued, “Then we asked everyone in the organization to take a 50 percent pay cut. So, we actually came out of COVID on the positive side of probably seven, eight million dollars,” Sanasie said.