Assad Fudadin, the Guyana Jaguars Vice-Captain said he believes that consistency, form and fitness among the players could result in success for the local side during the 2014/15 season of the West Indies Cricket Board’s (WICB) Professional Cricket League tournament which bowls off this Friday at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence. “Statistics have proven the batsmen have recently been doing well during the practice matches and we need that because our batting has been bad over the years,” he said.
“We have been bowling excellently so it’s good to see that our batsmen are fit and in form so I think consistency, keeping injury free and continuing to play good cricket throughout the season are what we need to do in order to win,” said the West Indies A team player.
The 29 year-old former West Indies Test player, who spoke with Stabroek Sports on Monday following his return to Guyana from the recent West Indies ‘A’ team’s tour of Sri Lanka, said that despite being in Asia and in different time zone he has been following the recent practice matches in Guyana and is immensely impressed at the results.
“I’ve been following the games in Guyana. It’s good to see the batsmen scoring a lot of runs. Like I said we have been batting bad over the years so it’s a good sign that the batters have improved mentally and they had to spend time at crease to get those big runs so that also shows their fitness level is up.”
Fudadin, who had a good unofficial Test series against Sri Lanka, finished the tour as the second-leading run-scorer behind West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite after racking up 191 runs from three matches with a top score of 103 runs and an average of 38.00. He admitted that he has been working hard on batting long and scoring quickly.
“I’ve been batting well for a long period of time I just needed to get big scores and I have been very working hard in Barbados so it’s just for me to make big scores now. I’m not thinking too much about getting little scores I just want to pile up big runs and get back in the West Indies team. Playing in different conditions and facing different bowlers is mentally challenging but the confidence is there and I plan to transfer it to the upcoming season, In sha’allah (God Willing)”.
“In terms of confidence, I’m right up there with confidence. I have captained Guyana. I was also Vice-Captain last year so I have been in situations like this before and I think the selectors and people in charge know that I can do the job so I’m grateful for that. I’m just looking to score runs and to contribute to Guyana’s success,” said the former West Indies Under-19 batsman.
The new regional season will see the franchise system being officially introduced and like many players, Fudadin lauded the positive steps thus far but explained that he did not want to get into too much detail, but is rather content on waiting to see how the system works and how it will eventually continue to develop cricket in the years to come.
“One positive I can state is that players are getting money so they can think about cricket and think less about making money outside, they can now focus more on improving on their game,” he concluded.
Guyana will take on Leewards this Friday at the National Stadium, Providence after which they battle Windwards in the second round and Barbados in the third, at the same venue.
The Guyana Jaguars team: Leon Johnson (Capt.), Assad Fudadin (Vice-Capt.), Rajendra Chandrika, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Narsingh Deonarine, Raymon Reifer, Anthony Bramble (wk), Christopher Barnwell, Veerasammy Permaul, Devendra Bishoo, Ronsford Beaton, Vishaul Singh and Trevon Griffith