LAST YEAR, the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) utilised the services of two Guyana Defence Force (GDF) personnel – 400 metres specialist Patrick King and Carl Stephenson – to provide special training for their squad of players who were preparing to contest the West Indies Cricket Board/NAGICO Super50 tournament in Trinidad and Tobago.Late last year, head coach Esaun Crandon and his assistant Rayon Griffith, who doubles as GCB Chairman of Selectors, along with Clive Grimmond and Michael Hyles-Franco were the ones instrumental in taking the Guyana Jaguars through their physical preparations and game similation exercises.

However, the Rayon Griffith-steward Cricket Guyana Inc. (CGI) selection committee has put together what can be described as the best possible team, taking into consideration the availability of key players, to contest this year’s WICB/Professional Cricket League NAGICO Super50 tournament in Trinidad and Tobago from January 15 to 25.
Eight teams will do battle for supremacy out of two groups, with the Guyana Jaguars placed in Group ‘A’ where they will face off with defending champions Barbados Pride, Windward Islands Volcanoes and Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC).
The Guyana Jaguars will take on all three teams on various dates in the preliminary round when the action bowls off, with the Volcanoes being their first opponents at the picturesque Queen’s Park Oval, the venue for all their matches which will be day/night affairs, on January 15.
In last year’s NAGICO Super50 tournament, the team under the captaincy of Christopher Barnwell performed creditably losing two out of four matches, their final preliminary round contest against Jamaica by 10 runs and a seven-wicket loss to eventual champions Barbados in the semifinals.
During that tournament, commendable performances with the bat were recorded by former Guyana and West Indies skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan, who waltzed away with the Man-of-the-Match award in the first two games against Ireland and then defending champions Windward Islands.
But Sarwan, who was not selected by the Jaguars for the PCL, but rather by Trinidad and Tobago Red Force, who later overlooked him for this tournament, is not competing and many felt that a great injustice was done to the batsman who still has lots to offer West Indies cricket.
Nevertheless, the show must go on and certainly this time around, the temperamental Trevon Griffith who averages 22.00 in this format of the game, is expected to lead the Guyanese batting attack, with the experienced Chanderpaul, a veteran in his own right with 398 matches under his belt and an average of 42.14.
This will be so, despite the present form being displayed by Rajendra Chandrika, since the above mentioned duo were the ones who gave Guyana, competing then as Malta Supreme Guyana, solid starts in last year’s tournament, especially against the Jamaicans.
They posted 88 in that contest, chasing a target of 244, with Griffith contributing 37 and Chanderpaul 65, yet the Guyanese lost the contest and with it the chance of topping the group, even though they had qualified for the final four prior to that match, based on their two opening wins.
If selected in the final 11, Chandrika can be used as the number three batsman, followed by the Barbadian Raymon Reifer, who to date has scored one half-century – 58 – against T&T Red Force in the four-day fixture which the Jaguars won by an innings and 60 runs.
Barnwell, who has been entrusted with the captaincy role once again, the in-form Royston Crandon, Steven Jacobs and the hard-hitting Jonathan Foo, will bolster the middle order, with both Foo and Crandon coming as the power-hitters, while Barnwell himself can execute such a role as was evident against Jamaica in the 2013 Caribbean T20 semifinal in St Kitts.
Anthony Bramble, who can also be used as an opener if the management committee decides to do so in order to play an extra bowler, will add some flair to the lower order, which has within its ranks, Veerasammy Permaul, Devendra Bishoo, Paul Wintz and Ronsford Beaton, all useful customers with the bat.
For sure, spin twins Permaul, the leading wicket-taker in the four-day version with 33 victims, and his Albion Cricket Club teammate Bishoo will lead the bowling, after Wintz and Beaton, who were the talk of last year’s tournament, take the sheen off the new ball.
Barnwell and Reifer can also add variety with their steady medium pacers, even as Crandon and the dreadlocked Jacobs can lend worthy support with the ball, bowling their off-spinners on the Queen’s Park track that is conducive to spin bowling at this time of the year.
So, how they will fare in this tournament, especially in the absence of Sarwan, along with left-handed trio Assad Fudadin (injured), Leon Johnson and Narsingh Deonarine, who are on Windies duty in South Africa?
I certainly think they can go one better than last year, reach the final and lift the WICB/PCL/NAGICO Super50 trophy for the first time since 2005 when Chanderpaul won the trophy at the Georgetown Cricket Club ground in fading light.
The tour management must get the combination right for the respective opponents and the players must understand their roles in every game as they depart these shores tomorrow.