With the eagerly-anticipated Caribbean Twenty20 championship only five days away, the Guyana national team is gearing up for a successful title defence having resumed training sessions on Monday.
Yesterday the players underwent a multi-stage fitness test (beep test) which showed that they were still on par with their fitness said coach Ravindranauth Seeram.
The beep test is internationally used by sports coaches and trainers as an accurate test of cardiovascular fitness.
“We had a fitness programme at the [Cliff Anderson] Sports Hall this morning (yesterday). “We’re trying to make sure that the fitness is still on par. We did a beep test and the team’s fitness is very good,” Seeram declared.
Speaking on the team’s performance last week in the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board Twenty20 Festival, Seeram said valuable experience was gained that will play a significant role in the players’ preparedness for the championships.
In Trinidad, the Guyana side, captained by Ramnaresh Sarwan, began with an eight-wicket defeat to the Trinidad and Tobago “A” team, which is made up of players that did not make the Trinidad national senior team.
They did, however, bounce back with an 83-run win against Trinidad’s national under 23 team, T&T Academy.
The team was also expected to go up against the Trinidad and Tobago national team at the tournament, however adverse weather conditions saw the match cancelled as the tournament came to a premature close.
The tournament was won by the “A” team with Guyana as the runners up.
The “A” team’s road to victory also included a win against Trinidad and Tobago national team, which is also preparing to compete in the championships.
Seeram said what affected the players the most was that they got no chance to practice on the pitch.
“I think it was good for us and will help us with our practice, it will give us that edge as we go into the championship. The problem is that we didn’t have much practice on the pitch, so in the first game we struggled but in the second game we picked up. In any situation match practice is essential before a game and we didn’t get that,” Seeram explained.
On Monday the team began training at Buddy’s Gym and yesterday they trained at the La Bonne Intention Training Centre. They are expected to resume training at the Stadium from 10am today.
Seeram said that he is hoping that the team could get the usage of the pitch at some point before the team departs for the tournament which begins next Monday in Antigua.
The team will leave Guyana on the morning of January 8.
“Hopefully if we get the ground we can have some practice matches on Thursday and Friday. But if not we still have to try to utilise whatever we have available, because all of the teams will be coming after us being the defending champion we will be the targeted team to beat,” Seeram conceded.
“They [the team] need to work on their batting and bowling, and hopefully we get that in before [the Championship]. If we get that we’re good to go, because everything else is good, the fitness is good and the captain is doing a very good job,” he added.
Team Manager, Carl Moore, also expressed the hope that the team will be able to get in some match practice before they embark on what should be an epic battle to defend their title.
“What is a real drawback is that we are not being able to get the lights and pitch and we are trying to see if we can get these. If we could get the light and the pitch in the middle we could look at a quickie practice match, and this would definitely help the team to iron out the fine tunings,” Moore said.
