Guyana Jaguars Head Coach Esaun Crandon said yesterday the team was focused on beating Trinidad & Tobago Red Force in tomorrow’s semi-final in an effort to move one step closer to lifting the limited overs title after some 11 years.
“We will definitely love to win both the Four-Day and 50-over titles because the 50-over title has been eluding us for some 11 years and the guys recognize that the team is much better than we have been playing in the tournament so far,” he told Stabroek Sports yesterday.
“What is also important is that we don’t have a second chance at the semi-finals, we cannot make up like in preliminaries where you have six games where you can bounce back if you lose,” Crandon added.
The Guyana team departed St Kitts for Trinidad & Tobago yesterday.
They will square off against the home team in the first of two semi-finals at the Queen’s Park Oval Ground (QPO).
The 36 year-old Crandon said that he was proud to see the team rebound after losing a few nail-biting encounters earlier in the tournament, quickly regrouping to book a place in the 2016 semifinals.
“We have to play our best cricket. We have to try and keep our boys focussed and come up with the best possible plan for the game. We don’t want to look too far ahead in terms of the Four-Dayers because five games have already finished so our plan is to take it one day at a time
since we have five games left. But yes, we would love to achieve that (winning both titles).
Crandon said that he was pretty pleased so far with the team’s performances which have allowed them to reach the limited overs semi-finals but admitted that more work is still to be done for the remainder of the season.
“It’s a wonderful feeling because we were a bit inconsistent in all the games. The batting didn’t live up to expectations but we are getting better as the games progress.
“However, we are confident of pulling this one off,” said the former national all-rounder who added that the Jaguars main focus is now on their familiar foes, the Red Force who flattened them in last year’s final.
Last season, embattled off-spinner Sunil Narine snared 6-8 as
he spun the Jaguars out for 65 which enabled the Red Force to clinch the 50 over title on home soil.
This year, Trinidad are without Narine and, according to Crandon, the team will be looking to get the better of the home team in their own
backyard come tomorrow.
“We now shift our focus to Trinidad and we are anticipating a keenly contested match. We know that they are more familiar with the conditions there but we will have to adjust quickly and be ready for them.”
Guyana’s batting has relied on the in-from Vishaul “Cheesy” Singh,
veteran Shiv Chanderpaul, Royston Crandon and Assad Fudadin, who became the first Guyanese to score a century in this year’s competition when he stroked an unbeaten 103 on Sunday against the Combined Campuses and Colleges Marooners.
Crandon did say that he still needed his batters to be a bit more consistent and accountable going forward.
“We will definitely need to bat as a unit and we need our batters to be more responsible especially when they get a start. We are working on rotating the strike better by hitting the gaps while our bowlers have be doing a great job in the opening and middle overs. But our bowling in the latter part of the innings has been of great concern for us so definitely it’s an area we will work on,” he said.
Guyana Jaguars have 18 points and will need to beat the Red Force in order to cement a spot in Saturday’s final.
