… bowls off this Saturday

FORMER West Indies captains Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, along with former national leg-spinner Arjune Nandu, are some of the players expected to feature in this weekend’s Guyana Festival at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, from 16:00hrs.Former Guyana and West Indies opener Clayton Lambert has also joined the impressive line-up of players for the Guyana Festival cricket match, which will pit the Masters team against the President’s XI.
A football game is also set for the day’s activities, but with the lineup of Guyana’s prestigious crop of players, both past and present, scheduled to compete, Festival officials have given the assurance that spectators will be entertained as Guyana’s past and present ‘greats’ in the cricket fraternity meet on the field.
Apart from the quartet mentioned above, some other names expected to be on show during the day’s action include Carl Hooper, Lennox Cush, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Clive Lloyd, Sudesh Dhaniram and Narsingh Deonarine.
Other players joining the teams include former Guyana and West Indies players Alvin Kallicharran, Faoud Bacchus, Travis Dowlin, Neil McGarrell, Clyde Butts and Dereck Kallicharran, the younger brother of Alvin Kallicharran.
These games are just a component of the activities planned for the three days of the Guyana Festival to be held under the theme: “Sound, Soul and Taste”. This inaugural event comprises a mixture of the country’s traditional music, dance, food, arts and craft being exhibited at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, from August 8 to 10.
While both Chanderpaul and Sarwan went on to represent the West Indies, Arjune did not since he migrated in 1992, after playing four first-class matches for Guyana in which he took five wickets at an average of 49.40.
Chanderpaul remains a steadfast fixture in the West Indies middle-order for which he has scored 11 414 runs at an average of 51.88 with 29 centuries, while the 34-year-old Sarwan has not featured in the Regional side since 2011 when the Windies faced India at Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Nevertheless, it would be a spectacular sight for fans who are asked to pay an entrance fee of $1 000 to witness the action or gain entry to the venue via their Festival Passport, which is on sale for $3 000 that will also guarantee them entry into all activities during the hosting of the Guyana Festival.