It was Shimron Hetmyer who led the West Indies Under-19 team to their first World Cup victory in 2016 and on Wednesday last it was Shimron Hetmyer who once again led the West Indies to victory against Bangladesh at the Providence National Stadium. But will it be Shimron Hetmyer who leads the Guyana Amazon Warriors to their first ever Caribbean Premier League trophy?
The 21-year-old top order batsman hails from the ancient country of Berbice and has been in love with the game from a young age. He started playing from the age of 11 with the Young Warriors Cricket Club in Berbice and since then had been on an upward trajectory.
He represented West Indies at the Under-19 World Cup in 2014 but only managed three single-digit scores out of the five games that he played in that tourney. Even his first-class debut was far from being memorable as he managed scores of 0 and 4 in both innings against Trinidad And Tobago.
However, destiny gave him a second chance and this time he was meant to marshal the troops in the under-19 World Cup and he responded with crucial fifties in the quarterfinals and semi-finals of the 2016 edition en-route to the silverware.
An attacking and destructive opener, he was picked up Guyana Amazon Warriors for the 2016 edition of the CPL. But he got out for a duck in the only game that he played. His promise and perseverance paid off and he was called up for national duties in April 2017 to feature in the three-match Test series against Pakistan. Slotted to bat at number 3, Shimron failed to convert his starts.
He was later picked up for the tour to New Zealand in December 2017 but again starts never materialized into anything substantial. On the same tour, he was exposed to white ball cricket as well.
In ODIs and T20Is, Hetmyer did not have a great time tallying only a handful of runs. He did, however, show a lot of promise as he scored a ton against UAE in the World Cup qualifiers to start his campaign.
Hard work and dedication paid off on Wednesday when Shimron was playing his 11th ODI against Bangladesh. He scored a whopping 125 off 93 balls hitting seven sixes and three fours. His ton would prove to be the defining factor as the Bangladeshi failed to match the Windes 271.
Shimron said he is working on his starts by giving much more value to his wicket and that could be expected when he takes to the field representing the Amazon Warriors.
“Yeah, the home crowd helped. It was a push for me to have my family and girlfriend here. They all support me hand in hand. So, thanks to them,” he noted.
Just imagine what he can do during the shorter format of the game with all of Guyana backing him. We can expect bigger hits from him as he may very well be what the Guyana Amazon Warriors need to gain them that elusive title.
This year the Warriors squad is being described as a force to be reckoned with. They would be led by veteran all-rounder Shoaib Malik. Malik, who is just three runs short of 7000 international ODI runs, is rated among the best limited-overs players in the world currently with almost 10,000 T20 runs in total, under his belt.
The other members of the squad are Sohail Tanvir, Chadwick Walton, Cameron Delport, Reyad Emrit, Imran Tahir, Jason Mohammed, Luke Ronchi, Veerasammy Permaul, Roshan Primus, Devendra Bishoo, Gajanand Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Romario Shepherd, Keemo Paul, Saurabh Netravalkar and Akshaya Persaud.
The Hero CPL Tournament bowls off on August from August 9.
(Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
