Former West Indies captain, Daren Ganga, has credited the cricketing academy in Guyana as being responsible for producing quality players for Guyana and the West Indies.
Speaking at the Caribbean Premier League draft last week where 10 Guyanese were selected across three teams, Ganga was explaining to fellow host, Alex Jordan, who begged the question.. “How is Guyana been able to produce these players?”
Ganga responded: “They have a year round set up where players are asked to report every day for training preparation and conditioning.”
The list of players are contracted by Cricket Guyana Inc. and are paid a monthly salary to participate in training to serve as a nursery for the Guyana Jagaurs, he added.
“You are seeing all the hard work and commitment in terms of training and preparation with all the young players coming to the fore and turning out to be great for Guyana cricket,” the former right handed West Indies opening batsman said.
Ganga spoke of Guyana’s dominance in the Regional Four-Day Championships where they won the title five times consecutively and where the likes of Shimron Hetymer, Keemo Paul, Sherfane Rutherford, Chandrapaul Hemraj have come though
the system.
All of the above players are with the Amazon Warriors this season, while Ronsford Beaton and Vishaul Singh have also benefited from Guyana’s setup.
Anthony Bramble has solidified himself as one of the better wicketkeeper/batsmen in the region, captaining the West Indies B in the Global T20 competition in Canada where they finished second and regaining a spot in the Warriors’ camp.
Also, exciting fast bowling all-rounders, Romario Shepherd and Clinton Pestano have both emerged from the project and have taken the Caribbean by storm and will be expected to continue in this vein for the CPL set for August into September.
Ganga not only pointed out the players moving on from the academy but also the coaches, stating.. “You think about Esaun Crandon who is one of the coaches who graduated from Guyana and into the West Indian set up.”
Crandon, who is Guyana’s head coach had been elevated to the assistant coach of West Indies for the England series earlier this year where the West Indies won the Tests, tied the One Day Internationals but lost the T20I.
Ganga also spoke of the input of Rayon Griffith who was appointed Guyana head coach after Crandon’s departure who has also moved up to Assistant Coach of the Caribbean side and will be with them for the ICC World Cup later this month.
