Guyana, under new skipper Narsingh Deonarine, will look to start the new year on a winning note when they take on the Windward Islands in their opening match of the 2007 Carib Beer Series at the Tanteen Recreation Ground today.
The Guyana team will be without West Indies’ test players batsmen Shivnarine Chanderpaul and regular skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan and the absence of these two players will undoubtedly weaken the team’s middle-order batting.
Added to that the team boasts four newcomers in Deon Ferrier, Royston Crandon, Veerasammy Permaul and Jeremy Gordon.
Ferrier, a member of the victorious Stanford Twenty20 team has graduated to the senior team after being voted the Guyana Cricket Board’s most improved cricketer last year, while Crandon, a former national Under-15 and Under-19 player has moved another step up the ladder and joins brother and Hong Kong Sixes West Indies’ player Esaun.
Permaul, was the most outstanding bowler at last year’s regional Under-19 cricket competition and will no doubt grab the chance of playing at the senior regional level with both hands, especially since he has the large boots to fill of another left-arm spinner in Neil Mc Garrell who was bypassed by the national selectors. Gordon is a young and promising speedster who should benefit from playing alongside former West Indies’ fast bowler Reon King.
Guyana will go into today’s match with confidence after taking first innings points from the Windwards in their drawn encounter when the two teams met last year.
But the Windwards have already put last year’s match behind them and are fully focused on turning things around this year.
“We are looking to try and get full points, that is our aim for this game, to start with 12 points,” Windwards’ manager Lockhart Sebastien was quoted by the Caribbean Media Corporation as saying. “We have three home games, one here, St. Vincent and Dominica and what we always try to do is make our home games count, so if we get a lot of points in our home games that will help us at least reach the semi-finals and then we will take it from there,” Sebastien said of the Windwards who are yet to win the Carib Beer title. The Windwards batting will rely on discarded West Indies’ opener Devon Smith with support from former West Indies’ players wicketkeeper Junior Murray and all-rounder Rawl Lewis.
But the key player for the Windwards should be the all rounder Darren Sammy who had an outstanding series for the West Indies’ `A’ team against Sri Lanka `A’ in the Caribbean late last year. The Windwards’ bowling attack will be led by left-arm pacers Deighton Butler and Jean Paul who will open the bowling with support from medium pacers Sammy and Kenroy Peters and the leg-spin of Rawl Lewis.
TEAMS (from):Guyana – Narsingh Deonarine (captain), Krishna Arjune, Travis Dowlin (vice-Captain), Assad Fudadin, Azeemul Haniff, Esaun Crandon, Reon King, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Derwin Christian, Imran Jafferally Royston Crandon, Veerasammy Permaul, Deon Ferrier, Jeremy Gordon
Windward Islands – Rawl Lewis (captain), Devon Smith (vice-captain), Hyron Shallow, Miles Bascombe, Heron Campbell, Deighton Butler, Junior Murray, Kenroy Peters, Andre Fletcher, Darren Sammy, Denis George, Liam Sebastien, Ronald Etienne, Jean Paul.
