Time to rest Hetmyer

While Regional 50-over cricket began in 1976, Guyana’s first title in this format was achieved in Antigua when Roy Fredericks scored the second 50-over century by a Guyanese in the 1980 final against the Leeward Islands after Timur Mohammed had scored 104 against Jamaica in that same tournament.
Guyana has since won eight more 50-over titles (1983, 1985, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005) but it has been 18-years since Guyana’ last 50-over title when, in near darkness at Bourda, Neil McGarrel hit Suliman Benn onto Regent Street to give Guyana victory on D/L System.
The preliminary rounds were played in Barbados where Ramnaresh Sarwan scored two centuries while the semis and final were held in Guyana, where Sarwan made a ton in semis and Seenarine Chattergoon registered a hundred in the final.

Since then, Guyana never lifted the title although they have won five consecutive First-Class titles from 2015.
Fast forward to 2023 when the standard of batting in the 50-over inter-county tournament was appallingly poor.
So, it was not surprising for those who follow local cricket that the batting woes continued in Trinidad in the Regional Super50 and that Guyana did not bat out their 50 overs against T&T, CCC, Barbados and the West Indies Academy in four of the six games they have played so far.
The bowlers, especially the spinners Gudakesh Motie (10 wickets, and one of four bowlers with a 5-wicket haul), Kevin Sinclair, Skipper Veerasammy Permaul and part-time off-spinner Kevlon Anderson have done a fairly good job.

Guyana began with a 10-run win against the Windwards when they defended their 229-9 as only Tevin Imlach and Sinclair, with 41 each, passing 30.
Guyana then lost to T&T by 114 runs after being bowled out for 176 in 33.4 overs as only Sherfane Rutherford (30) reached 30 while in their rain-ruined game against CCC they were dismissed in 48.1 overs for 177 as only Imlach, who scored a carefully constructed 80 from 105 balls, passed 30.
Against the Leewards, Rutherford’s 105 spurred Guyana to a four-wicket win as they reached 248-6, chasing down the Leeward’s 244-6. Kemol Savory (26), Imlach (32) and Anderson (32) all failed to build on starts.

When Guyana beat Barbados by 54 runs it was again Rutherford (the second leading run scorer with 246; only behind Alex Anthanez’s 276) who scored 74 with only Savory (35) managing to reach 16 as the bowlers defended 202 all out in 47 overs.
Guyana’s most shocking defeat was in their last game when they lost by 92 runs to the Academy side who scored 263 before bowling out Guyana for 171 in 35.1 overs. Only Sinclair, who has shown good all-round ability, made 46 while Permaul made 32 to rescue Guyana from 124-7.

The Guyanese, sixth on the points table with 25 points, will play their final preliminary game tomorrow in a day/night game against cellar dwellers Jamaca.
The general standard of the tournament has been low with only Kyle Mayers of the incumbent West Indies players having managed to score a century among the five batters who have done so with Rutherford stacking a strong claim to a ‘white ball’ ball international recall.

Many of the Guyanese batters poor performances have been due to a lack of match awareness and faulty shot selection when well set.
In addition, the new bonus points rules that mandate a team gets a point for scoring 60 runs in the 10 power-play overs, has not worked in Guyana’s favour.
Players like Taigenarine Chanderpaul, Imlach and Anderson score too slowly and face too many dot balls (another bonus point is earned for less than 50% of dot balls faced) to match the rate of scoring in the evolving ODI cricket.

While both Hemraj (who is in the habit of hitting a few boundaries and then getting out) and Chanderpaul (who bats too many dot balls and gets out without going on to big scores) have both been dropped, the same has not been done to Shimon Hetmyer.
The 26-year-old left-hander has struggled in his last 10 innings, going back to his last four in the CPL. The talented but temperamental Hetmyer seems to find new ways of gifting his wicket away and has scores of 5, 19, 10, 4, 24, 21, 0, 31, 0 & 16 in his last 10 innings.

His scores in this tournament are: 24 against T&T, 21 against Windwards, 10 against Leewards, 4 against CCC, 19 against Barbados and 5 against the Academy team.
Hetmyer has scored only 83 runs from his super50 games this season and has an average of 13.8 from six matches and should be given a rest now.
Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Leewards, WI Academy, CCC are all ahead of Guyana on the points table with only the Windwards and Jamaica below them.