By Clifton Ross
Former National U19 all-rounder Akshaya Persaud said role model Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been a great influence in his career thus far, adding that his success in the ongoing GCB/Jaguars 3-Day League was attributed to his more mature approach to the game.
one of his tons
The 20 year-old told Guyana Times International Sport during an exclusive interview on Tuesday, that the advice he has received from the veteran Chanderpaul, whom he refers to as “Pops” is one of the main reasons he has been in sublime form during the League. He noted that the invaluable bits of cricket knowledge are critical for young players who tend to take a careless approach and look to score from the word go.
“To be honest, he (Shiv) is my role model and I address him as Pops. When you go into bat he helps with the pressure he would tell you about playing proper shots. He would advise me in any situation to try and hit the balls in ‘V’ area and to keep the ball on the ground until I get my eyes in and look to score,” Persaud explained.
With 510 runs at an average of 72.85 and scores of 41, 9, 43, 33, 151*, 20, 51, 61, 101*, along with 4 wickets and 9 catches, the West Demerara captain has been one of the premier performers this season with the bat and credited his new approach as supplementary reasons behind his success.
“Well I think so far the tournament has been positive for me because I had starts and didn’t capitalize on them. The approach called for a lot of patience and respect for the bowlers and since then I got two centuries and my goals from then was to score big hundreds and don’t get out,” he noted.
West Demerara are currently third on the points table and Persaud indicated that it was the Guyana U19 call up, his addition to the Guyana Amazon Warriors T20 franchise and him acquiring a Guyana Jaguars academy contract, which has reinforced a level of confidence for him as a player and now captain.
“Well as a Captain people expect you to lead from the front, I got 155 last year and I tried to make it a norm and be consistent in the field with bat and ball. The experience so far has been good, I was skipper last year and I would tell the guys that they’re 11 players in the side and it’s a team effort so we don’t depend on one person to bat everyone has to pull their weight because it’s a total team effort,” Persaud added.
A former student of the Saraswati Vidy Niketan School, the young all-rounder said playing the League has further allowed him to settle in and bat for long innings.
He continued, “It all comes back to my preparation, working on techniques, I used to work at LBI facility and have someone record my session so I could work on turning my flaws into perfection. When I got the contract I was selected for West Indies U19 training camp and from then to now, coaches Crandon and Griffith have been good and they keep pushing you to be the best,” the 20-year old lamented.
From an academic, non-cricket perspective Persaud who resides at Cornelia Ida has been doing well off the field, taking nearly three years off of cricket to secure 14 subjects at CXC. A staunch Hindu, Persaud has also been doing charity work for Hindus for Selfless Service (HSS).
He wrapped up his interview by giving special thanks to his family while encouraging young cricketers to make education a priority. “I would like to thank my family, especially my parents for the support and guidance throughout my career so far because without them a lot of things would not have been possible.”
“Also to the young aspiring cricketers, I would encourage them to take their education very serious because we won’t play cricket forever in life. I made a lot of sacrifices for my education because I stopped playing cricket for 2-3 years to write CXC exams where I wrote 14 subjects and passed all with grades one to three,” the Everest Cricket Club’s First Division Captain ended.
Persaud will be in action this weekend when West Demerara take on Essequibo in the seventh and final round of the Jaguars 3-Day League at the Tuschen ground.
