GEORGETOWN, Guyana, (CMC):

Players on the national team getting ready to take part in the Caribbean Twenty20 starting next week, have written to Guyana President Donald Ramoutar asking him to rescind the decision to place the running of the game in the country in the hands of an interim management committee.

The Kaieteur News daily newspaper published a letter reportedly signed by the 14-member squad selected to represent the country in the CT20 which opens next Monday and is being staged in Antigua and Barbados.

"We have learned of the West Indies Cricket Board's directive to the Guyana Cricket Board on their ability to provide a team for the upcoming CT20," said the letter.

"We are also aware that only teams nominated and sent by the GCB, the sole cricket authority in Guyana, would be accepted.

"Further, we have been privy to the communication sent to the Honourable Minister of Sport Frank Anthony indicating the same position."

The players said: "We wish to emphasise that we earn our livelihood from playing cricket and WICB and International Cricket Council events constitute the major part of our career earnings.

"We are the proud representatives of a rich legacy of cricket, and many of us have already represented our country with honour, while there are others on the sideline awaiting an opportunity to do so.

"We, respectfully, ask in light of the above developments that the Government of Guyana remove all impediments, including the padlocks on the GCB office doors as they hinder the GCB from fully functioning, and by extension, curtailing us from earning our livelihood the way we are best suited."

The players said they looked forward to a meeting with the president to hammer out a solution to the problem.

"We ask that some measure of care be demonstrated for our welfare and that statements making their rounds and suggesting that the Government is prepared to accept a ban on participation from all cricket, be rescinded since we are the ones who would suffer under such an imposition," the letter stated.

The appointment of the interim management committee, under the leadership of West Indies legend Clive Lloyd, came after a ruling by the Chief Justice that the Government seeks to bring an amicable resolution to a dispute inside the GCB.

The ruling stemmed from a legal challenge about the legitimacy of the current GCB executive after elections at the last annual general meeting during 2011.