As the 2015/16 Professional Cricket League (PCL) Regional season looms closely, Coach and Manager of the defending champions, Guyana Jaguars yesterday bowled off a three-day training session at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence.
Since winning the title a few months back, the Jags took some time off before resuming weekly sessions conducted by Head Coach Esaun Crandon, Assistant Manager Rayon Griffith and coaches Michael Hyles and Clive Grimmond.
With most of the players missing due to commitments internationally or regionally, the team focused on a few of their senior players who remained encamped, mainly the young Academy Tier 4 players such as Steven Sankar, Dexter George, Kemol Savory, Gudakesh Moti, Kevon Boodie and others.
However, with the third edition of the Hero CPL over also the West Indies fixtures for the next few months, the Jaguars were boosted by the return of senior players Leon Johnson, Assad Fudadin, Chris Barnwell, Paul Wintz, Devendra Bishoo, Veerasammy Permaul and others.
According to Crandon, yesterday’s session was conducted mainly to assess the players physical condition as they were put through various runs, sprints, and the infamous Beep Test. Crandon said that he was satisfied with the result from the first day and hinted that while the players seemed to be fit, it came as no surprise because most of them were engaged in cricket while the others trained four times a week.
“Most of the guys have been active even those guys who were away with the CPL team were active. Today is the first of three days so we will be focusing on aerobics, tomorrow (today) strength and stability tests at the gym and on Wednesday we will finish off with the 4K run”.
As per normal, the players engaged in numerous cardiovascular sessions while sprints, dashes and other runs were conducted by the coaches. The beep test was conquered by the quartet of pacer Raun Johnson (13.7), Moti (13.4), Tagenarine Chanderpaul (12.7) and the West Indies batsman Johnson who clocked fourth place with 12.4.
Speaking on yesterday’s session and his assessment as coach with regards to if he has seen any areas of concern, the former national player said, “Overall, I think we saw improvements from this test compared to the last.
We had some good scores we are satisfied but of course there are some areas that a couple of the guys need to improve on and we will try to put in work, with two more days left we will continue to asses them so we can know where we need to be”.
Apart from the weekly sessions, the Jaguars will engage in a few matches but while the coach confirmed that practice games will be played, he is unsure of the dates and stated it will be released at a later, adding that lots of outdoor work will be carried out in order to make up for the weather which has forced the stoppage of most outdoor over the past few months.
“Until the dates are confirmed I can say we are looking to continue this month, hopefully we get good weather because we want to focus a lot on fielding, spending time in the middle, bowling, allowing our guys to get a hit in the middle and because of the weather we had to do a lot of work at the indoor facility at LBI and using the gym”. He added that weather permitting, the Jags will step up their sessions and they look to up their ante ahead of the upcoming senior season.
Meanwhile, Griffith another former national player expressed satisfaction after yesterday’s session. “I know that when it gets closer to the tournament, they (players) will get to the standard that we want them to be”.
“At the moment, the work that they put in today was acceptable we saw some improvement form our players especially, Robin Bacchus, Kandasammy Surujnarine, Raun Johnson who topped his beep test, I think he’s always up there when it comes to training, but the others represented themselves fairly well, but overall it was good”.
The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Chairman of National Selectors said that today’s gym session, along with the sessions to come is merely mean used by the coaches to see whether or not the players have improved in the required areas.
He also confirmed that the adopted pair of Barbadian players Ryan Hinds and Javon Searles who were drafted earlier in the year ahead of the upcoming senior season will be arriving in Guyana by the end of the week and Griffith noted that the duo will have to undergo their fitness tests as well.
The team will resume their second day of special training at the GRMSC gym from 9:00hrs under the watchful eyes of trainer Neetzkiel Yisrael.
