Even without West Indies captain Darren Sammy and opener Devon Smith the Windward Islands are looming large.
Sammy is with the West Indies team for the World Cup in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka which starts a day after the Guyana/Windwards third round clash in the regional four day competition.
Smith slammed 193 to cancel out Ramnaresh Sarwan’s 116 and lead the Windwards to first innings points when the two sides met last year.
This year, two teams are bracketed on seven points after the second round and tomorrow’s match is expected to break that tie.
Recently, The Windwards have been getting the better of the locals. In 2009 the Windwards won by the whopping margin of an innings and 147 runs while last year, the two sides played to a draw at the National Cricket Stadium in St George’s Grenada with the Windwards scoring 462 all out to Guyana’s 452 all out.
The two sides have had contrasting results in their first two rounds.
Guyana, after taking first innings points against defending champions Jamaica in their opening game, crashed to a heavy 165-run defeat after Marlon Samuels slammed an unbeaten double century.
Their second round game against the Leeward Islands at Bourda, here, was rained out without a ball being bowled.
The Windwards, after capturing first innings points against the Combined Campuses and Colleges team, catapulted to a 33-run defeat in their opening game.
They then drew with Jamaica in their second match where they also dropped first innings points.
New coach Mark Harper must be extremely disappointed not only with the team’s second innings collapse against Jamaica but by the rain ruined second round game against the Leewards which robbed his team a chance of increasing their points tally with the aid of home court advantage.
Longstanding manager Carl Moore said however that the time out of the middle gave the players an opportunity to work on the mental aspect of their game.
“We had practice sessions at the indoor facility at the Chetram Singh Centre of Excellence at LBI and the period indoors gave us more time to work on the mental aspects of our game as we prepare to head to St Vincent for this weekend’s clash,” Moore was quoted as saying.
The Guyana selectors have brought back former West Indies U-19 skipper Leon Johnson for tomorrow’s game in place of Gajanand Singh.
Johnson lost his place after the Jamaica game where he scored 22 and 23 and was replaced by Singh for the game against Leewards.
Despite Johnson’s recall, batting will continue to be the bugbear of the team.
New captain Assad Fudadin will need to recapture his form of last year where he scored 71 of the team’s first innings total.
So far, openers Shemroy Barrington and Rajendra Chandrika have had starts which they failed to build upon with Chandrika making 47 and Barrington 31 against Jamaica.
It is a mystery why the team consistently produces such low scores as Veerasammy Permaul and Esaun Crandon are quite capable with the bat with Permaul making 47 and Crandon 58 against the Windwards last year.
The Windwards collapsed against the CCC making only 145 in their second innings and allowing the students to score a come from behind win.
It is a lesson Harper’s Guyana team should take keen notice of.
