… Ramnaresh Sarwan appointed skipper
NOT since 2005 when Guyana defeated Barbados in the final of the inaugural West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Regional limited- overs competition, have Guyana won another regional title, and things got worse when they failed to make the final four of last year’s tournament.

This time around, national coach and former national middle-order batsman Ravindranauth Seeram is optimistic his team can produce enough to first make the President’s Cup one-day tournament final four, then the finals from there – a feat which would be welcomed by the home team fans.

“As I said before, our zone is not a difficult one hence it should be easy for us to qualify for the final four, which would mean improvement in our performance from last year.

With the senior players in the calibre of skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Travis Dowlin and Royston Crandon, two players who have just returned from West Indies duty along with the in-form Narsingh Deonarine, Leon Johnson and Sewnarine Chattergoon, our team can be a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming tournament,” said Seeram.

The 48-year-old Seeram who also performs the duty of selector, further stated that president of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetram Singh met and had a pep talk with the players, urging them to make the best use of the early preparation and at the same time, do their best this time around.

“Make no bones about it, the president, like every cricket fan out there, is concerned over our poor showing by the team this year and he said so in a small pep talk which he delivered to the players this morning, a sentiment echoed by the skipper who also urged the players to put their best foot forward.”

One of the things Seeram and company will be paying keen interest to is the fitness level of the 25-man squad which was selected for training, from which the team to contest the GCB Festival next weekend and the Regional Limited overs tournament will be selected.

To this end, the players minus Chanderpaul, who will be in the country this Sunday, were placed under a rigorous training session Tuesday morning. The programme will continue for the remainder of the week from 06:30 h to 07:30 h at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground each day.

It is back to the same venue in the afternoon, where they will be engaged in net sessions daily from 13:00 h to 16:00 h under the supervision of Seeram with able assistance from Orin Bailey and, according to the former, the guys showed the eagerness for same.

“When we were putting them through their fitness drills this morning (yesterday), the guys showed us they needed same and we have decided to do so every morning for the remainder of the week, as we want to put the best team on the field for Guyana at the commencement of the tournament,” stated Seeram.

Asked to compare any faults the senior team may have had from last year to now and what was being done to remedy same, Seeram stated that the selectors placed a young team on the field and it did not work out and such a mistake could not be repeated.

“Due to the absence of our senior players, we tried the younger players before but it did not work out. So it was back to the drawing board for us and with the senior players being available this time around, the younger players will have somebody whom they can rally around and together take Guyana’s cricket forward.”

Meanwhile, as was expected, Sarwan was nominated and confirmed captain of the team for the four-team Twenty20 festival which bowls off next week Friday at the Guyana National Stadium between Barbados, Jamaica, the United States of America and Guyana and the WICB Limited overs tournament which will be hosted by Guyana from October 28 to November 5.