“We want to bring it back home to Guyana” − Crandon

By Avenash Ramzan

Since the inception of the regional 50-over competition in 1972, Guyana has won nine titles, the last of which came in the 2005-06 KFC Cup when a Sewnarine Chattergoon hundred led the home team to victory in a tense final against Barbados at Bourda.

The wait for another title has been long, and when the Guyana Jaguars lined up against the host Trinidad and Tobago Red Force in last season’s final, it seemed like the South American would finally break the jinx.

However, they ran into a destructive Sunil Narine, bowling with a suspect action, as they crumbled to a massive 135-run defeat, with the off-spinner bagging 6-9, to back up a maiden hundred from Jason Mohammed.

Guyana Jaguars Head Coach, Esaun Crandon, who has overlooked the team on a phenomenal run in the Four-day competition, winning the inaugural 2014-15 season and a five-match unbeaten run so far in the 2015-16 season, is looking to return home with the NAGICO Super50 title when the competition, which starts on Thursday, wraps up on January 24.

“Ten years has been a long time. We want to bring it [the title] back home to Guyana,” Crandon said upon departure for St Kitts this week.

The former national player said the approach would be simple, as the focus would be on implementing the plans that would be derived for specific matches.

“We’re going to take it one game at a time. We realise that we have to be smarter than the opposition this year- we were smart last year, but we want to be smarter this year and play better cricket than them obviously. We will have our plans in place, but execution is going to be important for the lads. We expect guys to play their roles, and once they understand their roles, it’s going to be easy for us,” Crandon explained.

When Guyana last won the regional 50-over title, current skipper Leon Johnson was still a teenager, and though he had already made his First-Class debut, he was yet to appear in regional 50-over match.

He now stands on the cusp of being the first captain since Shivnarine Chanderpaul to lift the 50-over title, and coach Crandon believes he has the quality of players to make that dream a reality.

“We’ve got a very good team, when compared to last year, and I think we’re thriving from some momentum from the Four-day version of the game, and we want to transfer that into the one-day version,” Crandon contended.

The squad reads: Assad Fudadin, Kevon Boodie, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Leon Johnson (Captain), Vishaul Singh, Christopher Barnwell (Vice-captain), Raymon Reifer, Anthony Bramble, Steven Jacobs, Veerasammy Permaul, Gudakesh Motie, Paul Wintz, Romario Shepherd and Royston Crandon.

Devendra Bishoo and Rajendra Chandrika are on duty with the West Indies team in Australia. As soon as they are available, they will replace two players.

Guyana Jaguars’ first match is against the Windward Islands Volcanoes on Thursday. (aramzan@guyanatimesgy.com)