Chairman of the national cricket selectors Rayon Griffith said yesterday that he was satisfied with the play of defending West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Regional four-day champions, the Guyana Jaguars who, at the end of the fifth round of the two-round tournament, are in second position.
The Jaguars trail front runners Jamaica Scorpions by three points but according to Griffith, the former Guyana players he is satisfied with his team’s work so far.
“They’ve done fairly well so far although they haven’t played their best cricket as yet,” Griffith told Stabroek Sports in an exclusive interview last evening.
“They are three points behind Jamaica at this present moment,” he added.
Griffith’s mathematics was spot on. The Jamaican Scorpions lead with 67.6 points while the Guyana Jaguars are on 64.6 points.
According to Griffith last year’s title run came as a result of the combined effort from bowlers and batsmen.
This year, the batting is a bit of a worry for the Chairman who opined that should the top five in the batting department be a little more consistent then the Jaguars will retain the title.
Griffith praised the dependable Shivnarine Chanderpaul who has so far scored back-to-back centuries.
“Shiv has been playing his role as a senior player and guiding the youngsters,” Griffith said.
“His strike rate this year is about 60 plus whereas in the previous tournament his strike rate was in the 30s,” said Griffith.
Griffith also reserved some kudos for the former West Indies U19 skipper Shimron Hetmeyer.
“Hetmeyer is a young, exciting player, who although he already has a 100 at the first class level has to make adjustments is he is to score his maiden regional four day century. His strike rate is about 75,” he added.
Griffith also made mention of Barbadian Raymon Reifer who he said has done well “with bat and ball.”
He said that playing in the three-day league matches locally helped Reifer to understand how to bat on the surfaces in Guyana.
Griffith said that the fast bowlers Keon Joseph, Reifer and Christopher Barnwell have so far captured 38 wickets while the spinners led by Veerasammy Permaul and Gudakesh Motie have captured 43, figures which show the marked improvement by the pacers.
“It never used to be so close before,” Griffith declared.
Leewards defeat
Speaking of the defeat by the Leeward Volcanoes in the second round, Griffith said he would not describe the loss as a setback nor would he in hindsight say that the captain should not have declared when he did.
“I won’t say it was a setback. You have to give the Leewards credit. They had to declare at that time if they were looking for an outright win and the fact of the matter is that the Leewards reached the target in the second to last over,” said Griffith.
Griffith said the defeat probably resulted from a couple of chances which were put down.
“If we had held those chances we would have won the game,” he said adding…..”We will get better in the fielding department.”
Griffith also said that the day/night games also affected his team’s chances of topping the standings at the end of the fifth round.
“We had two day/night games and both were affected by rain which prevented us getting maximum points from those games. Against the Barbados Pride we had to defend 160 and they were three wickets down and at that stage they match could have gone either way.”
He praised the captaincy of Leon Johnson saying:” Leon Johnson’s captaincy has been excellent, his field placing has been absolutely perfect and I think he has done a good job,” he declared.
Looking ahead to the new year, Griffith said that training will resume early in the new year with the CGI contract players and the Academy players.
“We’ll resume on January 2 depending on the weather. The focus will be on the one day tournament which stars January 24 in Barbados.”
Griffith also revealed that national Cricket league One day tournament which was scheduled to commence Thursday last has been postponed because of the weather adding that January 3rd is the date tentatively set for the tournament to commence once the weather is favourable.
