JOHNSON, Leon Rayon
D.O.B: August 8, 1987 (Georgetown)
Teams: Demerara, Guyana, West Indies
Leon Johnson is a diminutive, wristy left-handed middle-order batsman and occasional left-arm orthodox spinner who has been engaged in three One-Day International games for the West Indies to date. A member of the Georgetown Cricket Club, he was rewarded for his level-headed approach to batting at the youth and senior domestic levels with a place in the Guyana team for two matches in the 2004 regional Carib Beer first-class season at the tender age of 16.
However, his returns were minimal as he was only able to eke out four runs from three innings which caused the selectors to omit him from their reckoning for the next three years as they gave him time to develop.
The touch player took the intervening years to represent both Guyana and the West Indies at the Under-19 level and had the distinction of captaining the national and regional sides.
He contested eight Youth One-Day Internationals, three in Pakistan in January, 2006 and five in Sri Lanka in the ICC Under-19 World Cup which followed immediately.
All told he aggregated 300 runs in these matches at the excellent average of 42.85 runs per innings and in the process he fashioned an unbeaten 117 against the Pakistanis in Karachi – an innings that carried the young regional side to an exciting seven-run victory in the second game of the three-match series.
In the 2008 regional first-class season, Johnson batted maturely in accumulating 427 runs in six games at the healthy average of 42.70 runs per innings to nudge the regional selectors into positioning him into their frame.
The highlight of his performance was an innings of 94, most of which he made in partnership with the veteran Shiv Chanderpaul, in a match against the Combined Campuses and Colleges at Providence.
Later that year (August, 2008), he was selected to the West Indies senior side to contest a tri-series One-Day International tournament for the Scotiabank trophy involving Bermuda and Canada in Canada.
The ‘little man’ acquitted himself well scoring 27 off 28 balls on debut against Bermuda as he helped West Indies to a six-wicket win, and then registered a half-century (51) off 77 balls in a 128-run partnership with Xavier Marshall in his second encounter against Canada as the visitors won by 49 runs.
Although he only registered a solitary run in the final against the Canadians, he had done enough to clinch a place on the tour to Abu Dhabi where the team was to engage Pakistan in three 50-over games.
However, for some reportedly insular reasons, Johnson did not feature in any of the games although the middle order proved alarmingly weak and West Indies went down 3-nil. It must be pointed out that each of the three encounters featured seven Jamaicans including the skipper Chris Gayle.
The dismal performance of the middle order reached its lowest ebb in the final match which the regional side lost by 31 runs as Xavier Marshall (a duck from 2 balls), Shawn Findlay (5 runs from 10 balls) and Brendon Nash (1 run from 6 balls) stalled the innings.
Johnson was, nevertheless, included in the party for the trip to New Zealand late in 2008 for a two-Test and five-match One Day International engagement but yet again he did not find favour with the tour selectors in making the final eleven in any of the games.
Disillusionment, which led to a dramatic loss in confidence and form, resulted in poor returns in all forms of the game at all levels for the better part of the 2009 and 2010 seasons but in recent months he has been quietly re-establishing himself with some useful scores.
Johnson has been named in the Guyana squad for the first four matches in the 2011 four-day regional competition and he undoubtedly knows that it is an opportune time to remind all and sundry of his undoubted talent.
RECORD:
ODIs 3:    RUNS 79:  AVG 26.33:    HS 51 vs Canada, King City (North West Ground), 2008
(Digicel: Guyana’s Bigger, Better Network)