President of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Drubahadur acknowledged that the Guyana Jaguars’ poor performances in the current Super50 were mainly due to the adverse weather that affected the team’s preparations prior to the tournament.
Guyana Jaguars were eliminated at the preliminary round after only winning four out of their eight scheduled matches consequently failing to qualify for the semis.
DRUBAHADUR
According to the GCB top-man, the annual Cricket Guyana Inc. (CGI) Jaguars 50-over League tournament which was set for late December last year to mid-January was supposed to give the national selectors a good look at the core of players to form the Super50 squad. However, due to the rainy period during the aforementioned time, the competition was put on hold.
“The rain wasn’t kind to us in 2016 and earlier this year and the competition we were planning to use to name our team was badly affected so I think that may have contributed to our early exit,” Drubahadur explained to the media at the headquarters of the Guyana Cricket Board, Regent road on Thursday.
Notwithstanding that, Drubahadur also commented that they will have to move forward in 2017 and expressed optimism that the team can do well in future tournament.
“Unfortunately, the weather was bad and as Guyanese we would have loved to see our country coming back with the trophy but we have got move forward now,” he mentioned.
In Group B, Guyana Jaguars were beaten twice each by their arch-rivals Barbados Pride and Jamaica Scorpions in comprehensive fashions much to the consternation of Guyanese fans.
The Jaguars’ victories came against less-fancied International Cricket Council (ICC) Americas and Combined, Campuses and Colleges (CCC) Marooners.
“Obviously, we [are] disappointed because we didn’t make it to the semi-finals but I knew the guys tried well in Barbados because they know the conditions and players, but again we have got to move forward,” Drubahadur related.
Quizzed on if changes are of utmost importance at this time, Drubahadur replied by stating that these were the basically the best set of players.
“Having seen the technical people saying that there were several dropped catches and other things and that definitely would have also contributed for the poor performances but as I said we have to move forward and try to progress next time,” Drubahadur declared.
He spoke highly of young promising players like Kemo Paul and Bhaskar Yadram, both of whom represented the West Indies Under-19 team in the same competition.
The junior Caribbean team featured in Group A alongside defending champions Trinidad and Tobago Red Force, Leeward Islands Hurricanes, Windward Islands Volcanoes and English County team Kent Spitfires. Only Hurricanes and Red Force made it to the other stage.
Guyana was last crowned with a regional one-day trophy in 2005 under the captaincy of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who came out as the second best Guyana Jaguars batsman.
The veteran left-handed Chanderpaul scored 199 runs from six matches with the best average of 66.33 while skipper Leon Johnson finished with 243 runs from his eight appearances and Franchise player Raymon Reifer proved his all-round capability by making 189 runs and claiming 16 wickets with an impressive economy rate of 4.89 from eight matches.
Another fast-bowler Ronsford Beaton picked up 14 wickets from his seven matches while left-arm spinner Veerasammy Peramul bagged 12 victims from his eight outings to be among the Guyanese top players.
