Guyana U-17 finish winless in poorest show at CWI Regional tournament

– Barbados retain title

By Brandon Corlette

The Guyana U-17 Team have been denied a victory in the fifth and final round of the Cricket West Indies (CWI) Regional U-17 One-Day Championship, and remain at the bottom of the points table with 3.1 points after registering four defeats.

In contest against the Leeward Islands in the final round, the Guyanese were hit hard when rain ended the match with the Islanders on 26-1 after 7.1 overs.
Barbados retained the title, finishing with 17.9 points after recording three wins without any defeat.
This was easily the poorest showing by any Guyanese team in a U-17 Regional tourney.
Only a few players were noticeable by their performance, with Matthew Nandu, Sheldon Charles and Mavindra Dindyal readily coming to mind. This team lacked cooperation, and thus remained winless.
Moving forward, the entire team, management and members of the board must put other systems in place for these youth teams in Guyana. Players should be gelling together for weeks leading into the buildup of a tournament.
This Guyana U-17 team has been a topic of discussion in the country, especially since more capable players were omitted from the touring squad.
The Guyana U-17 teams have been using the inter-county tournaments to prepare for their regional tournaments. This team played the Hand-in-Hand Inter-County tournament that featured Berbice U-19s, Essequibo U-19s and Demerara U-19s. They showed some amount of effort in those encounters, but some of the players who played in the Select U-17 team have not performed, yet they were still selected.
The inter-county U-17 tourney was played earlier in the year, and two members from the Select U-15 team led the batting charts. Rampertab Ramnauth and Mavindra Dindyal were those batsmen, along with Nandu, who scored heavily. Additionally, Sarwan Chaitnarine and Jonathan Rampersuad showed promise with the bat.
West Indies U-15 selectee Ramnauth was not picked to play for the U-17 team, and his West Indies U-15 team mate Isai Thorne was also omitted. Man of the Final in the U-19 Inter-County tourney, Daniel Mootoo, was also left out of this team. A lot more names can be added in the omission list, but the tournament is done and dusted.
Those selections made for the poor showing of the Guyana U-17 team, and the results were evident. This squad went into training camp days before departure, not weeks; and the gap from their preparation tournament was large, while they lacked match time.
Not all the selectors should be blamed, but some must take responsibility for the team’s poor performance. Omitting players with Regional experience and great talent is certainly unacceptable.
This tournament will be seen as a learning curve, and the country’s cricket board should improve preparation systems for these Regional youth teams.

Individual Awards
Best Wicketkeeper- Nimar Bolden (Barbados)- 8 dismissals, 8 catches
Most wickets – Tyran Theodore (Windward Islands)- 14
Most runs – Teddy Theodore (Windward Islands) – 149, with a top-score of 96 (highest individual score in tournament)
Most Valuable Player was Jaden Leacock (Barbados)