GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Guyana’s head coach Ravindranauth Seeram said Friday his side was ready for their Champions League Twenty20 campaign, following the end of a rigorous four-week camp.
The squad, led by under-fire West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, is scheduled to leave here tomorrow morning for the cash-rich September 10-26 tournament in South Africa.
“I think we are ready to go. The guys are all pumped up, and we should come out victorious in our first outing at the T20 Championship in South Africa,” said Seeram.
“I’m confident of winning because the guys have shown a lot of determination, and they also worked hard for this tournament.”
Guyana will represent the Caribbean at the World club T20 showpiece after winning the inaugural Caribbean Twenty20 in Trinidad and Tobago in July.
They will begin their quest for supremacy against Royal Challengers Bangalore of India on September 12 at Centurion, and Seeram believes the guys can transform their regional form to the international stage.
“We played well in the Caribbean T20 tournament, and I think with these couple weeks of intense preparations at the Guyana National Stadium, the players are willing to make an impression in South Africa as well,” Seeram explained.
“We had (Roger) Harper with us, and basically he helped out in various aspects of the game, and the guys would have also learnt a lot from him.”
During the preparation period, the Guyanese faced Trinidad and Tobago in two warm-up encounters, losing the first by nine runs and winning the second by 48 runs.
The mixed results were not of concern to Seeram as he said the focus had been on working on executing game plans and addressing technical issues with players.
“The two matches against the Trinidadians were about experimenting on our game plan, trying to sort out any faults with our bowlers and batsmen, [and] we are thankful to Trinidad and Tobago,” he noted.
“We were able to rectify one and two faults with the players. At the moment though, not all the players are one hundred per cent fit as few of them are still recuperating from the flu, but I am really confident we will do well in South Africa.”
The 15-man squad, management team, and officials are expected to regroup today prior to their departure on tomorrow morning.
Guyana are expected to have a testing run in Group B. Their second game will be against Sachin Tendulkar’s Mumbai Indians on Septem-ber 16 at Kingsmead in Dur-ban before meeting Highveld Lions in Johannesburg a day later.
Their final preliminary round match will be against South Australia in Johannes-burg on September 21.
SQUAD – Ramnaresh Sarwan (captain), Travis Dowlin, Narsingh Deonarine, Lennox Cush, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Derwin Christian, Christopher Barnwell, Jonathan Foo, Assad Fudadin, Steven Jacobs, Richard Ramdeen, Royston Crandon, Esaun Crandon, Paul Wintz, Davendra Bishoo.