This year’s Caribbean Twenty20 side is missing a few key elements from last year but Manager Carl Moore is confident that new stars will emerge to ensure Guyana make a successful defence of their title when the tournament bowls off on Monday in Antigua.
Moore spoke with Stabroek Sport last evening at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence during his team’s final practice session and he said that it was time for the team to move on and concentrate on their task ahead.
Moore admitted that the team, which departs Guyana today at 11:00 hours, would have lost crucial players in Lennox Cush, Narsingh Deonarine and pacer Paul Wintz but said that there are players in the side that “will fill those breaches”, albeit the sizeable breaches.
“It would not make it weaker but there are crucial players in the team especially Narsingh [Deonarine] with his allround ability but we have a lot of fellas there who would step up, who are supposed to step up, who will step up, we hope, to fill those breaches. We have to move on and if they are not there we can’t do anything about that so we have to do our best, put our best foot forward and there will be some new stars,” Moore explained.
Moore noted that the confidence level in the side was high and the management team has high expectation of the players. He said that the team, which will play first play Jamaica on Monday night in Antigua, has to believe that it is still the best T20 unit in the Caribbean.
Therefore, Moore believes that the team’s standard of play has to be of a high standard from game one.
“Being the defending champions expectations are high because we have something to go out there and defend and to prove that we are still the best Twenty20 team in the Caribbean and so everybody is aware of that and we are going there to prove that. We cannot this (the tournament) lightly and we have to show all that we are the champions”, Moore emphasised.
This point was further emphasised with Moore revealing that the recently concluded tournament in Trinidad and Tobago was a wake up call for the team after it was bowled out for 88 chasing 93 for victory against T&T A Team.
He stated that there was some introspection and the players, to the best of his knowledge, are grounded again and are focussed on retaining their title and representing the Region at the Airtel Champions League tournament in September.
He is confident that the players understand their roles and will do well if they are executed properly.
“What happened in Trinidad might have helped them to look at themselves and look at the team and since them we have fine tuned a little. Ganga (Darren) said that game woke them up.
They now know what they have to do; the only thing is that we did not have the sort of turf practice that we should have had because of the rain”, Moore stressed.
According to the Moore since the side was unable to have any turf practice the major focus was on getting the players to optimum fitness. Further, he stated that the focus on fitness transcended what would have been normal level with turf practise.
“We have been emphasising on that more than normal. There was a lot of rigorous training by Mr. Yisrael [Kezquewah] and you have seen the improvements in the players,” Moore stated.
Team: Ramnaresh Sarwan (Captain), Travis Dowlin, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Richard Ramdeen, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Royston Crandon, Christopher Barnwell, Jonathan Foo, Steven Jacobs, Derwin Christian (Wicketkeeper), Easun Crandon, Devendra Bishoo, Verasammy Permaul and Andre Stoll.
Stand bys: Shemroy Barrington, Anthony Bramble, Assad Fudadin, Kellon Carmichael, Zaheer Mohamed, Steven Latcha and Leon Johnson.
