“FOLLOWING his return to then British Guiana in 1914 from England, where he had the distinct privilege of meeting with Ranjitsinhji, the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, John Aloysius Veerasawmy, he founded the East Indian Cricket Club (EICC), which later became Everest Cricket Club, with the support of prominent Indo-Guyanese.”These included Alladat Khan, a bookkeeper from Berbice, and a Muslim, with the club first being located in Queenstown on December 13, 1915 on land leased to it by Veerasawmy, on which a pavilion was built.”

This piece of history on the Camp Road-based Everest Cricket Club was made known to the public last Tuesday night by Professor Clem Seecharan, BA, MA, PhD who is a writer/historian of the Indo-Caribbean experience, born in Guyana, grew up in East Berbice, Corentyne and obtained his doctorate at the University of Warwick.

He was at the time addressing an audience that included Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony, Attorney-at-Law Stephen Lewis, Honorary Secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board Anand Sanasie, Guyana and West Indies middle- order batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul and well known historian Tota Mangar.

The occasion was dubbed ‘An evening with Professor Clem Seecharan’ and was held in the upper pavilion of the Club which is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year and which saw the Seecharan make the feature address, following brief remarks from Dr Anthony, Mangar and ECC president Rajesh Singh.