FORMER Guyana and West Indies skipper Clive Hubert Lloyd, yesterday, told a press conference how excited and proud he was to have his name attached to this year’s West Indies Cricket Board’s organised and sponsored Regional Super50 tournament which bowls off in Guyana today.
Speaking at the Barbados based Line and Length Network press briefing which was held at the Princess Hotel to update the public of that entity’s broadcasting off all matches in this year’s tournament, an unprecedented first, the 67 year old Lloyd said he is looking forward to this year’s action.
“I feel proud to know that this trophy is being named after me and I must say thanks to the WICB for doing so in my honour, after their long list of retired stars to choose from, including Curtly Ambrose, Gus Logie, Jeffrey Dujon, etc.
I will be looking forward to this tournament earnestly, as they will be a plethora of present day stars in the caliber of Christopher Gayle, Lendl Simmons and Kieron Pollard just to name a few, who has been treating the cricketing world with their batting ability of late,” said Lloyd.
The burly left- handed batsman who was known as the ‘Super Cat’ due to his fielding ability, believes the present West Indies team can do much better than the results they are producing now and called on them to do so.
He said the WICB is proud of the team and will be backing them to the hilt, while stating that they can go further up the ladder as the talent is there, but what is needed is to get such a talent together so that they can progress further.
“You read in the newspapers that the West Indies will be looking for a clean sweep in the present series against Bangladesh, yet they were bowled out for 61 this morning (yesterday). Such a performance leaves one to wonder whether or not they have heard about ‘Blackwash’ or even ‘Whitewash’.”
He was referring to the Regional team’s present tour of the Asian country, where they failed to complete a three nil victory in the limited overs series, winning same by a 2-1 margin, after suffering another humiliating eight wicket defeat yesterday.  
The WICB Director also took the time to express a wish, wherein he would like to see the talismanic Gayle and Simmons opening the batting for the West Indies in a rampant mood, with the other batsmen in the caliber of Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo following.
Lloyd also believes that the Sagicor High Performance Centre (HPC) and the West Indies ‘A’ team has done great wonders for West Indies cricket recently, especially the latter that has been enjoying numerous tours.
“When you look at touring teams visiting a country in these present times, you would see that there is not much practice matches against Regional teams in comparison to the past where you would have seen a touring England team taking on a Barbados national team before a test match.
When you look at tours now, you would see one practice match against an ‘A’ team before a test match, which means the ‘A’ teams are getting the exposure that is needed to get the players ready for test cricket.”
Prior to Lloyd’s brief remarks, managing directors of Line and Length Barry Wilkinson and Andrew Mason, president of the Guyana Cricket Board Ramsay Ali, Sales and Marketing Manager of Princess Hotel Nadine Hing and John Ramsingh of National Communications Network, addressed the media.
According to Ali, all systems are in place for the successful hosting of the tournament, while he said the GCB was looking to host the Guyana versus Barbados encounter at the Albion Community Centre ground on Sunday, but had to switch to the Blairmont ground, since the original venue was not passed by the WICB.
Ali further added that his Board would be putting in extra marketing efforts to promote the game at the new venue, which would see patrons being asked to pay an entrance fee of $500 to witness same, while admission to the semifinals and finals, which will be held at the Guyana National Stadium and carried live by ESPN, would be $1,000.
Wilkinson said he was happy to see talismanic Jamaican opening batsman and captain Christopher Gayle competing in the tournament and along with Trinidad and Tobago’s Kieron Pollard and Lendl Simmons, the value of the Super50 could be very big.
He said the Line and Length Network which will be partnering with the National Communications Network (NCN) will for the first time produce live ball by ball commentary for the two matches which will be played simultaneously, with sister stations around the Caribbean receiving same free of cost.
Mason was high in praise for the local commentary panel which includes, Inderjeet Persaud, Avenash Ramzan, Jermaine Neblett, Neil Barry and Sydney Jackman, who will all be utilized during the tournament, saying ‘We want to tap into the local commentary industry, so we decided to go for an all out Guyanese panel.”
Both Ramsingh and Hing said their entity was pleased to partner with the Line and Length Network on this venture, with the former calling on Corporate Guyana to come out and support the sponsorship of the tournament, saying NCN is offering reduced rates.
The Super50 bowls off today with two matches featuring host Guyana’s Amazon Conquerors and the Windward Islands at the Guyana National Stadium and joint defending champions Barbados and the Sagicor HPC at the Everest Cricket Club ground with both fixtures getting underway at 0:900hrs.