GCB 2009 Awards …
Dr Hilaire is guest speaker at the Umana Yana tonight
GUYANA and West Indies middle-order batsmen Narsingh Deonarine and Travis Dowlin, along with the pugnacious national youth opener Trevon Griffith, have been chosen as the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Cricketers-of-the-Year 2009 in their respective categories.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Dr Ernest Hilaire will be the guest speaker at the Annual Awards presentation ceremony which takes place at the Umana Yana tonight from 19:00 h.

Following his superlative first class season earlier this year in which he became the first batsman to score over 1 000 in a West Indies Cricket Board (WICB)-sponsored tournament, when he accumulated 1 068 runs for Guyana, Deonarine earned himself a recall to the Regional side for their tour to England and the GCB’s Senior Regional Cricketer Award which he will receive tonight.

Even though he did not play in any of the Test matches in England, he was selected for the two Test series against Bangladesh which was boycotted by the frontline players (Deonarine included) over a contract dispute, but managed to retain a place in the team for their just concluded tour of Australia, where he scored 82 in the second innings of the final Test at Adelaide.

There are many similarities between Deonarine and his mentor Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who was fortunate enough to collect the said award for the past two years. Both of them came through the cricket system in Guyana and are noted for their sharp fielding at cover-point as well as wearing anti-glare patches under their eyes.

Deonarine was under a cloud when it comes to recognition, until his match-winning six in the inaugural Stanford 20/20 tournament in 2006 against Trinidad and Tobago which netted Guyana a whopping US$1M as the first prize spoils along with a trophy and rings for the individual players.

The left-handed Deonarine is averaging 29.57 from just five Test matches in which he has scored 207 runs with a highest score of 82, while his first class average from the 78 matches he has played, scoring 4 377 runs inclusive of six centuries and 29 half-centuries and a highest score of 198, is 37.41.

Dowlin was thrust into the Test squad rather unexpectedly, following the strike by the senior players before the first Test of the home series against Bangladesh and he had the numbers to back his inclusion, as he finished second to Deonarine in the Regional competition for Guyana with 580 runs.

Being described as a scab player by some but a hero to many others, Dowlin, who became Guyana’s latest Test player, narrowly missed out on a maiden Test century against Bangladesh in Grenada. He represented the West Indies ‘A’ team and was a member of the victorious Stanford Superstars squad who defeated England in their one-off match that carried a winner-take-all prize of US$20M.

After four Test matches, he has an average of 41.00 following an aggregated 328 runs, including three half-centuries and a highest score of 95, while his first class average reads 30.35 from 78 matches in which he scored 3 642 with four centuries and 23 half-centuries – his highest score being 176.

Trevon Griffith, Dowlin’s club mate at the Queenstown-based Demerara Cricket Club (DCC), is an aggressive opening batsman at the youth and first division level locally. He is regarded by many as a pugnacious opener who is not afraid to challenge the opposition’s opening bowlers and this earned him the right to collect the GCB Junior Cricketer-of-the-Year Award.

His production in the 2009 TCL/West Indies Under-19 tournament, which was held in Jamaica where he scored the lone century for Guyana, has earned him a place in the preparatory squad and the final 14-man squad for the Youth World Cup in New Zealand next month, along with his countryman fast bowler Keon Joseph.

Griffith, Jonathan Foo and Alex Amsterdam will receive Special GCB Awards for their performances in the 2009 Regional Under-19 tournament. Griffith will collect his for the highest individual score while Foo and Amsterdam will receive the Best Fielder and Most Valuable Player awards respectively.

The efforts of Berbice successful Inter-county skipper for 2009, Assad Fudadin, have not gone in vain, as he will be presented with the Senior Domestic Cricketer-of-the-Year award while his Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTYSC) teammate Royston Crandon, who represented the West Indies in the ICC Champions Trophy tournament in South Africa, will receive the GCB’s Most Improved Player Award, and their club will collect the Club-of-the-Year Award.

Also to be rewarded are West Indies female players in Berbice’s Tremaine Smartt (Women’s Senior Cricketer-of-the-Year) and Shemaine Campbell (Women’s Junior Cricketer-of-the-Year), while individual awards will be distributed to former Essequibo and Berbice Cricket Board presidents, Alvin Johnson and Malcolm Peters.

Former secretary of the GCB and president of the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) Bishwa Panday, Anil Beharry, Lennox Hunte, Rajesh Rajah, Joseph Taylor, former Guyana and West Indies fast bowler Colin Stuart, Professor Winston McGowan and Rohan Chandan will be rewarded for their sterling contribution to the gentleman’s game in Guyana.

A retrograde step from last year’s programme would be the non-distribution of the Corporate as well as Reporter-of-the-Year awards at this year’s ceremony.