FEMALE West Indies fast bowler Tremayne Smartt and former West Indies ‘A’ team skipper Veerasammy Permaul were last Thursday night named the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Senior Female and Male Cricketers-of-the-Year for 2014.

Pugnacious national opener Shimron Hetmyer who carted off three individual prizes and was in the reckoning for another, was named Junior Cricketer-of-the-Year, even as Phaffiana Millington, Joshua Persaud and Tagenarine Chanderpaul, walked away with multiple accolades.
Narsingh Deonarine, who earlier in the day was named as replacement for the injured Assad Fudadin and will join the West Indies team in South Africa, was named the Senior Domestic Cricketer-of-the-Year, while national skipper Vishaul Singh won the Most Improved Player award for his exploits.
Millington won awards for Most Wickets in Regional Under-19 and Most Valuable Player (MVP), Persaud for Most Runs in the Regional Under-15 and MVP in Regional Under-15 and Chanderpaul for Most Runs in the Regional Under-19 three-day and MVP in the Regional Under-19 three-day.
Hetmyer was rewarded for scoring the Most Runs in Regional Under-19 50 overs, MVP in 50 overs and his Junior Cricketer-of-the-Year Award, while he was also nominated for the Senior Cricketer-of-the-Year Award alongside Permaul and Deonarine.
Latoya Smith (Most Runs in female U-19), Kevin Sinclair (Most Wickets in Regional U-15), Adrian Sukhwah (Most Runs in Regional U-17), Kemo Paul (Most Wickets U-17), Shurfane Rutherford (MVP U-17), Steven Sinclair (Most Wickets, U-19) and Shiraz Ramcharran (Most Wickets U-19 50 overs), were also rewarded.
Guyana and West Indies ‘A’ fast bowler Ronsford Beaton and the country’s latest Test player Leon Johnson also attracted individual awards for their achievements with the West Indies ‘A’ team and recognition of his selection to the Test team respectively.
Special Service Awards were presented to Zaheer Mohammed (Journalist), Wazim Habib (Curator), Jaipersaud Hardeo (Umpire) and Savitri Persaud (Administrator) even as Sterling Products Limited and Banks DIH were honoured for their sterling contributions to the game as a sponsor.
Albion Cricket Club won the Club-of-the-Year Award from Demerara Cricket Club and Berbice Police Cricket Club respectively, who were all nominated for the said title.

(By Calvin Roberts)