By Neil Barry Jr.,
The Guyana Defence Force first division cricket team will be aiming for a strong finish to the Georgetown Cricket Association (GCA) Carib Beer Heroes Cup competition when they take on the Gandhi Youth Organisation this weekend at the Malteenoes Sports Club ground Thomas Lands this weekend.
The GCA Carib Beer Heroes Cup will conclude this weekend after approximately some 53 weeks. The tournament has endured a prolonged postponement due to bad weather and the unavailability of grounds, which robbed the tournament of its main focus which was to produce good cricket.
The Heroes Cup was originally expected to end in January of this year, but none-the-less will make way for limited overs cricket after today and tomorrow’s final game between the GDF and GYO.
The tournament was played on a league basis which saw the nine first division clubs in Georgetown each playing each other once.
That mean a total of eight games for each club, and after a year of stop-start cricket, the points table reveals no real paradigm shift with the usually consistent trio of the Georgetown Cricket Club, Demerara Cricket Club and Malteenoes Sports Club continuing to revolve around the top spots.
This time, however, Malteenoes will be awarded the Heroes Cup with DCC falling just short while GCC is currently in third position but the GDF can likely oust them from a podium finish at the conclusion of this week-end’s game.
The GDF has put up a sterling effort to become a candidate for one of the top three spots but may, however, feel dissatisfied with not being a real contender despite boasting a team with enough fire power and experience to challenge most first division clubs in the country.
The side will, at least, hope to bring a commanding end to their campaign against the boys from GYO whose side was also boosted for this competition but may reflect at the end of it with some disappointment.
The GDF trio of Marcus Watkins, Dillon Heyliger and Shemroy Barrington will all look for runs up the order for GDF while left-arm spinner Dennis Legay will look to add to his impressive showing with the ball.
The GDF batsmen will have to score their runs against a fired up Leon Scott who bowled aggressively in his team’s previous game against the Guyana National Industrial Corporation (GNIC).
Abilash Dookie and company from GYO might be on runs in this tournament but will be aiming to put right what went wrong with the support of Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who is the form player after scoring a century alongside his father recently. The game does not hold much sway on the overall outcome of the tournament but one can expect the good players to take pride in their performances by making it count.
