… undergo fitness test
THE national 20-man cricket squad began their encampment and preparations for next year’s West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) four-day competition with a fitness test under the watchful eyes of Cricket Development Officer of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Reon King.

In an invited comment with Chronicle Sport after the squad’s two-hour session at the Police Sports Club (PSC) ground yesterday, King who played the last of his 19 Test matches for the West Indies against Pakistan in Kingston, Jamaica back in 2005 said he was pleased with what was done by the members of the squad.

“This is the beginning of a five-week encampment and today (yesterday) we had a look at the fitness level of the players to assess their preparedness, based on the battery of tests done, with the intentions of seeing how they would be able to cope with the programme we have outlined for them.

“The programme is a three-tier one, with the first being their physical conditioning, followed by their cricket skills and culminating with their game sense at games and even though the sky is the limit, I would say that today’s session went well, especially when they worked as a group,” said King.

King, who took 53 wickets at an average of 32.69 with one five-wicket haul, would like to see the players do better, even though some of them namely Sewnarine Chattergoon, Royston Crandon and Keon Joseph are all carrying niggling injuries.

“I would like to see a much improved performance and even results from these guys with regard to our tests that were done. Yes, they have been playing a lot of cricket lately, but their fitness level leaves much to be desired, especially some of the senior players.”

With amicable assistance from national coach Ravindranauth Seeram, national blind coach Bharat Mangru, Assistant Cricket Development Officer (ACDO) Robin Singh and Police Sports Club athletics coach Linden Wilson, King took the players through a series of fitness tests, which included a 300-metre shuttle and a 30-metre sprint.