THE Guyana National Under-17 cricketers departed yesterday afternoon to hunt for honours in this year’s Regional Under-17 tournament, which will be played in Trinidad and Tobago from July 4 to 15.

The squad, who benefitted from exposure in the GCB Under-17 and Under-19 Inter-county tournaments and also a four-day pre-tournament camp, appeared high in confidence and well prepared for their competitive regional encounter.

The Under-17 championship title is the only one that has eluded Guyana, since the closest the Guyanese have come to winning the title was in 2016 when Guyana placed second after their final game against the host nation, Trinidad and Tobago, was rained out.

In this 50-over tournament Guyana will face its five other regional counterparts – defending champions Barbados, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, hosts Trinidad & Tobago and the Windward Islands – in a round-robin format where each team will face the other once. The team to accumulate the most points at the end of the five rounds will be crowned champions.

Barbados are the defending champions while Guyana finished third in 2018.
Guyana will open their challenge against Trinidad and Tobago at Couva, Leeward Islands will play Jamaica at Brian Lara Stadium and defending champions Barbados will match skills with Windward Islands at Gilbert Park.

The full squad reads:
Matthew Nandu, Sarwan Chitnarine, Marvan Prashad, Mavendra Dindyal, Niran Bissu, Zeynul Ramsammy, Andre Seepersaud, Sheldon Charles, Azizi Christiani, Chandrapaul Ramraj, Jagdesh Dowlatram, Chaitram Balgobin, Avinash Rajkumar and Ajay Gainda.