“WE are ready for the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament. The guys are in great shape while their preparation went well leading up to this tournament. We know that it is up to who plays the better cricket on the day, but certainly I am confident this team will be victorious and take us to South Africa.”

Those were the words of former national middle order batsman Ravindranauth Seeram, coach of the national cricket team which leaves these shores on Wednesday for Barbados where they will compete in the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Regional Twenty20 competition.

The winner of this competition will represent the Region in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Champions League which will be hosted by South Africa in September and Seeram was of the opinion, Guyana has the qualities to emulate Trinidad and Tobago.

However, he believes the bowling of the team is the weak area and rightly so, since there is no Veerasammy Permaul or Mahendra Nagamootoo in the line up, but still feels veteran all rounder Lennox Cush and Esaun Crandon can be a force to reckon with.

“Our bowling department is limited as we don’t have much experienced bowlers in the squad apart from Cush ( Lennox ) and Crandon (Esaun) and while Royston Crandon did play in the last tournament, he was used as a batman.”

He added: “We are definitely limited this year when it comes to bowling, but given the circumstances, our bowlers are giving of their best, sticking to our game plan very well so far in the practice matches we have seen them in operation.”

Seeram was quick to highlight his pleasure at the fielding display of the team which was exemplary, even though the players are exhausted from the intense fitness sessions they were under recently.

While there is concern over the bowling department, the batting of the Ramnaresh Sarwan led 14 man squad continues to remain the strength of the team, a thought echoed by the coach in his invited comment with Chronicle Sport yesterday.

Seeram used the two assimilation match exercises, followed by the two practice matches as examples in describing the power of the batting lineup, which he feels can chase down any total given to them by their opponents.

“The who idea is about batting and the batsmen are coming to grips, as they are trying to bat for as long as possible while trying to adjust to the slowness of the wicket, which is caused by the inclement weather and while I may say they are not doing so quickly, the scores posted says something different.

We had a plan that we worked to, which was getting a certain target at the end of certain overs, whether it was the first 4 or 6 overs, or the final 10 divided into two sets of 5 and they have been getting to that target and even beyond on every occasion and that in itself spoke volumes.”

He continued to state: “We sent our specialist batsmen in to work the ball around (which they did effectively) and coming down to the bottom, had our power hitters coming in and doing their thing to the best of their ability also and that was effective as well.”

He used the partnership between Cush and Jonathan Foo (30 from 1.5 overs) as a perfect example of the power hitting in the latter stages of the team’s innings, saying it was very good for the team’s spirit at that time of the game.

The team was expected to have their final practice match against a Rest XI yesterday, but same was cancelled due to the late arrival of some members of the opposition line up and that was a major setback to Seeram, who needed another look at his charges, especially a few senior batsmen and the bowlers.

“Our senior batsmen should be able to adjust on any surface and that along with a few of the bowlers were scheduled to be worked on today. Unfortunately, we are unable to do so as the Rest XI did not turn up on time.”

With the camaderie that is flowing within the camp, coupled with the words from Seeram, Guyanese cannot only look forward to their team winning their first senior competition since the 2006 Stanford T20 tournament, but also going one step further to South Africa in two months time.
Ramnaresh Sarwan (captain), Sewnarine Chattergoon, Christopher Barnwell, Travis Dowlin, Narsingh Deonarine, Darwin Christian, Lennox Cush, Royston Crandon, Devendra Bishoo, Esaun Crandon, Jonathan Foo, Paul Wintz, Steven Jacobs and Assad Fudadin. Ravindranauth Seeram (coach) and Carl Moore (manager).