FOLLOWING Guyana’s embarrassing eight-run defeat at the hands of the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) on Monday, their third for the season, skipper Assad Fudadin expressed disappointment at the approach of his batsmen, especially the middle order.
In an invited comment, the 25-year-old left handed Fudadin who top-scored with 44 in his team’s second innings total of 191, hunting down 200 for a come-from-behind victory lauded his bowlers for the work they put in, but blamed the batsmen for not completing the job fully.
“I am very disappointed with the loss, especially after the bowlers did their job by restricting CCC for a total, that when added to their first innings lead, was manageable for us to get, even though the pitch was extracting uneven bounce from the second day.”
He continued, “The batsmen, myself included, have been getting out the same way all the time, either to bad shot selections or a loss of concentration and with this game being the closest we were close to tasting victory, I am highly disappointed that we did not complete the job at hand and come away with full points instead of none.”
The Berbice Inter-county skipper believes a video analyst should travel with the team, since he or she would be helpful in replaying for the batsmen, their shots that gifted their wickets away.
“Certainly, a video analyst should be with the team. When we travelled to South Africa to contest the Airtel Champions League last year, we had a video analyst who worked along with the team before we even contested and won the Caribbean Twenty20 championships and I strongly feel we need to have same now.
All the matches we have lost this season, we were in a position to win starting with the first one against Jamaica when we took first innings points but lost outright and that alone can highlight the level of competition we are portraying, but a lack of application from the batsmen, especially in the second innings has been our downfall to date,” said Fudadin.
The Guyana captain is also of the opinion that the batting line-up that included himself, Leon Johnson, Vishal Singh, discarded Narsingh Deonarine, Rajendra Chandrika, Richard Ramdeen and to an extent Derwin Christian and Zaheer Mohammed lacked the mental toughness to battle it out on the final day.
With that in mind, Fudadin said the management team, inclusive of coach Mark Harper who refused to comment after the dramatic loss, and long-serving manager Carl Moore, will be dealing with the mental approach of the batsmen, prior to the final round match against Trinidad and Tobago.
“Yes we will be having a rap session where the mental approach of the batsmen will be on the cards and this will take place before the game against Trinidad, where all we can do is play for pride and not suffer another defeat, especially at home,” said Fudadin.
Twenty-two-year old Barbadian medium fast bowler Carlos Braithwaite ripped through Guyana’s middle and lower order to take 5-24, including the last three wickets to fall to engineer Guyana’s collapse from 163-4 to 191, a mere four balls after tea.
Meanwhile, due to the consistent rainfall in Berbice, the final round match between Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago that  is  scheduled to be played from this Friday, has been shifted to the Guyana National Stadium, Providence.