By Marlon Munroe
The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) is pulling out all the stops to ensure that the national team arrives for the Airtel Champions League in South Africa next month well prepared both psychologically and physically.
The Board has employed the services of Sport Specific Conditioning coach Kezqweyah Yisrael, co-founder of Genesis Fitness Express and he will be working along with the coaching team that currently includes Coach Rabindranauth Seeram and Orin Bailey. He is tasked with the flexibility conditioning and the speed, strength endurance and agility training of the players.
Based on his expertise Yisrael, who has a diploma in Fitness and Nutrition, told Stabroek Sport yesterday during a session with the team at the stadium that since the team will be travelling to South Africa, which lies at an altitude of about 1,350m (4,500”) above sea level, the board should include training in the hills or on the highway.
“The higher you go the air is thinner indeed and what you have to do is simulate the similar conditions and what will be a lot better, and this was not on the fitness programme that was provided by the board, to have the players train above sea level. They can do some training on the highway as well as hill conditioning which will certainly help.
One of the things that will also help in the thin air is if you have more red blood cells to convert your energy and so on, which is paramount in fitness conditioning. So there are certain things that we have not been able to cover but eventually we will be able to make a certain level where we can be very competitive in the short space of time that they have before the tournament,” Yisrael explained.
Yisrael, who is also a yogi, noted that he was pleased with the spirit and commitment shown by the players. “They are putting their all into their drills everyday where you put them into a competitive atmosphere and they want to win and get to the highest level and this is part of their psychological conditioning”, he described.
The avid sports fan indicated also that it is important for the cricketers to believe that they “are winners” so as to prevent them from going to South Africa and being easily intimidated by their opposition. He pointed out also that the infrastructure and sports organisations that the players may meet in other countries can also intimidate and therefore it is instilled in the players that “winning must become a habit and not to give up easily”.
He said that the players are receptive because their eyes seem ‘fixed on the prize”.
Seeram stressed that the main focus at the moment is ensuring that the players are fit. When grilled about his expectations of the team he said that “we are going in as the underdogs and we are hoping to do our best and take it one game at a time”.
When asked whether he will be drawing inspiration from the Trinidad & Tobago team, which reached the final of the inaugural tournament last year, Seeram said that the tournament was played in a different country under different conditions.
He believes that the slower pitches of India suited the Trinidadians since that is the nature of the pitches in the Caribbean. Having said that, he said that Guyana will have its challenges on the bouncier pitches but the players will do their best to counter and follow the trend set by the Trinidadians.
“We are not going there to just turn up, we are going there to make the country proud by competing to win”, Seeram expressed.
He believes that the team is a good one but expressed some concerns about the bowling department, a sentiment Travis Dowlin had expressed two day ago. However, he was impressed with the emergence of Jonathan Foo and was impressed with the bowling of Devendra Bishoo, who was named Most Valuable Player of the inaugural Caribbean Twenty20 Championships.
“The team will do well though if it stays together. Every player has their role to play and if they do we will do well”, Seeram concluded.
