The private meeting between Minister of Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, and the management of Guyana’s Amazon Conquerors cricket team at the ministry’s office on Main Street yesterday was described as “very fruitful.”
Attending the meeting were President of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chetram Singh, GCB Secretary Anand Sanasie, Team Manager Carl Moore, Coach Ravindranauth Seeram, Captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, Director of Sports Neil Kumar and Chairman of the senior selection committee Claude Raphael.
The minister was not available for comment when Stabroek Sport tried to contact him at the ministry, but it was disclosed by Kumar following the meeting that the debriefing focused on identifying and analyzing the team’s shortcomings.
They also looked at various means of developing players locally and team preparation for international competitions.
Further details pertaining to what was discussed at the meeting were later related to media operatives at a press conference held by the GCB at their office on Regent Road, Bourda.
At the media briefing, Singh described the meeting as “very fruitful” and said that it was basically a “semi-debriefing on the tour.”
“At the end of it [the meeting] we did come up with some conclusions on the way forward for Guyana’s cricket,” Singh disclosed.
In addition, Singh revealed that one way the gathering decided to work toward this common goal was to form a five-member committee that will “look towards the future of Guyana’s cricket.”
“As one of the ways forward we are looking to have a good bunch of cricketers available to us all the time that will be training often to show that they are fit and ready,” Singh noted.
According to Singh this will be achieved through the formation of an elite group of cricketers that the GCB will mainly focus on for selection on the national team.
“A decision was made and we are hoping to have an elite group of about 25 players… we might take off one or two or add one or two, but we are looking to have this elite group of players throughout the year so that we would have this bunch of cricketers to choose from.
“We also spoke about the different forms of cricket like the four-day, 50 overs and 20 overs because in some cases we do need specialists for some,” Singh noted.
“In some instances they are few players we have who can actually participate in all aspects of the cricket,” Singh added as he reiterated that due to this fact, specialists were needed and have to be identified for the various forms of the game.
In relation to the team’s performance in South Africa Singh stated that the team left with high expectations but “as the results have shown” they did not do as well as they expected, having lost all of the four preliminary round games.
“In our opinion we felt that we had a good camp, we had a good practice session and in our opinion we were well prepared for that trip to South Africa,” Singh said.
Looking on the brighter side, Singh pointed out: “We started off badly, but things improved towards the end.”
Singh added that the team’s poor showing at the Airtel Champions League can partially be related to South Africa’s climate.
“I’m not making excuses but some of the conditions which we met, we were not prepared for.
It was just off winter and two weeks into spring and the weather was very cold and it was the kind of weather most of our players never had the opportunity to play in,” Singh said. “I can say the tour was a learning experience for us, having participated at this level of competition for the first time,” the GCB head added.
