Bishoo, Chandrika looking forward to fruitful season

By Akeem Greene

The Guyana Jaguars pair of Devendra Bishoo and Rajendra Chandrika have their eyes set on a rewarding season in the upcoming West Indies Cricket Board’s (WICB) Professional Cricket League (PCL) Four-day tournament.

When Guyana Times Sport spoke to Bishoo on Wednesday after practice at the National Stadium, the West Indies leg-spinner expressed joy at being back in training with his fellow teammates.

The leg-spinner said, “It’s been a couple weeks out, but I’m happy to be back, training with the guys; I’m comfortable around the guys, it’s the same set of guys I have been playing with over the years.”

The 2011 ICC Emerging Player-of-the-Year can count himself a bit unlucky after he picked up his career-best figures of 6-80 against the touring Australians last year, and then suffered a shoulder injury which kept out of the final eleven on the return tour to Australia.

“I was disappointed during the series when I got injured; I never really had a serious injury, unfortunately is it is something beyond my control. I’m happy to be back and I will work day by day to strengthen myself,” Bishoo explained.

Due his bulky workload while playing Test cricket, Bishoo has suffered discomforting cuts to his bowling finger, which has sidelined him just as he seemed to be in the best of form.

Former West Indies great, off-spinner Lance Gibbs had offered Bishoo some advice, stating that he used “a mix of boric acid and calamine lotion” to protect his fingers.

Quizzed on what he is doing to remedy the situation, Bishoo revealed, “ I’m strengthening it as much as possible; it has not burst for a while now and it’s an injury I don’t like to get. When it happened I was extremely disappointed, but now it’s okay and I don’t have to worry too much about it.”

Bishoo, who has taken 291 wickets from 68 First-Class matches, returns to a team that has been extremely dominant in the PCL Four-day competition.

When asked how he expects to contribute, the Berbician said,   “The team has been playing amazing cricket over the league, now coming into the team I want contribute to help the team win and I want to contribute in a big way as well. It took us a while to regain the title and now we have the opportunity to win two in a row.”

Notably, at Wednesday’s practice, Bishoo displayed an eagerness to engage in batting drills.

“Over the last few months I have been working on batting, I have taken it more serious than before; you have to work hard and keep improving on your skills,” he reckoned.

Bishoo’s leg-spin will complement what is potent bowling line-up that has the league’s leading wicket-taker Gudakesh Motie and fellow left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul.

Chandrika back

Meanwhile, the right-handed opening batsman Chandrika is also upbeat about the upcoming five games the Jaguars have left in the league.

The West Indies opening batsman is making a return from injury and appears to be in good touch after making 86 in the practice match last week.

“Coming off of Australia which was a learning curve for me, I’m looking to get some runs here. I need to be more patient, which I did sometimes in Australia, it worked for me there, so I just need to be selective with my shots,” Chandrika explained.

Chandrika, who has played 38 First-Class matches and scored 1,773 runs at average of 25.69 with one century and eight half-centuries, is focused on making sure he churns out some big scores.

“I have no specific goals, but simply try to get much runs as possible. I will take it step by step, four-day cricket is long so when you get a hundred, you have to carry on from there and get a big score,” the batsman posited.

Commenting on the side’s rich vein of form, Chandrika said, “We have been doing well because of the commitment, discipline and hard work as a team. We just need to continue along that same path.”

Table toppers Guyana Jaguars play the Trinidad and Tobago Red Force from Friday at the National Stadium, Providence.

The squad reads: Rajendra Chandrika, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Assad Fudadin, Leon Johnson, Vishaul Singh, Raymon Reifer, Anthony Bramble, Veerasammy Permaul, Devendra Bishoo, Gudakesh Motie, Keon Joseph, Ronsford Beaton and Robin Bacchus. (akeemg@guyanatimesgy.com)