Warriors’ success

For a nation that has had more “downs” than “ups” in its recent history, the performance of the Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) offers our policymakers object lessons in the power of cricket to bring our peoples together and the latter’s stimulation of willpower towards success. The start of the 2017 Hero CPL T-20 tournament was not an auspicious one for the GAW with only one win in their first six games – including their first two home games.
Their record belied their performance in the previous four seasons, when they proved to be the most consistent team in the tournament. But what their united fans – especially in Guyana knew, was their losses were not one-sided and showed if the will to win could be stimulated and nurtured, they could once again prove themselves to be the winners they were.
And this is precisely what occurred in their last two games at Providence Stadium, especially when they prevailed over the Barbados Tridents, with whom they were competing for a spot in the playoff’s “qualifying match”.
Leaving Guyana with their will to win fortified by the support of their fanatical home fans, the GAW turned up the heat in their final two outings to ensure they would be masters of their fate. This time they crushed the Tridents with their bowling after their striker Sohail Tanvir matched the best bowling figures in this format of the game with a five-wicket haul for three runs. The bowler at the other end assisting him, Rashid – was the one whose record he matched. Tanvir later said the team had all committed themselves to a higher standard in all facets of their game.
And the GAW showed in their final game of the season against the second place Jamaica Tallawahs in their home ground that their commitment was not confined to mere words but to action in the field. The Tallawahs scored a respectable 149 runs in their 20 overs but this was bested in a mere 10 and a half overs by the fired-up Warriors. In this manner, they upped their net run-rate to such a level that their participation in the qualifying playoff match, scheduled for this Tuesday, is all but a formality. While there is the cricket cliché of cricket being a “game of glorious uncertainty”, it is certainly not a game of impossible improbabilities.
Returning to the larger picture we alluded to at the beginning, it is our hope our policymakers are taking note. The Government inherited an economy that was doing better than most of its regional partners but we have unfortunately slipped badly, save for the production in gold. But that is analogous to one player in a cricket team doing well, but the latter inevitably losing because economic development, like cricket, needs an all-round effort.
We are at the cusp of finally launching an oil industry and that lesson needs to be reinforced, since the experience of so many countries in Africa, at our level of development, demonstrate the follow of placing all hopes on “one player”. The Government has to commit itself to developing all sectors of the economy, especially agriculture in a world where “food security” is the need of so many countries and we are endowed with the requisite land and water that is lacking elsewhere.
But the developed world has shown that “man does not live by bread alone” and in our Caribbean, cricket is food for our soul. The entire West Indies perked up when our team won their Test match against England and it is quite possible if we were measuring production more granularly, our productivity had a blip the next day.
For Guyana, the coming together of our peoples at Providence to inspire their Warriors to greater efforts and success should remind the Government that the Opposition should be brought aboard to inspire the business community and the entire Guyanese nation to similar heights and successes.