Ronaldo Alimohamed has replaced Raymon Reifer in the Guyana Jaguars squad for their match against Trinidad and Tobago Red Force today at Providence in the West Indies Professional Cricket League.
The Guyana Cricket Board confirmed the lone change with the 21-year-old all-rounder included while pointing out that Reifer, along with Sherfane Rutherford and Gudakesh Motie are all nursing injuries.
Alimohamed, is a former West Indies Under-19 player who made his List A debut in last year’s Super50 Cup where he played two matches.
Jaguars currently sit fourth on the points table with 24.8 points, coming from a win and a loss in their two matches. Red Force, on the other hand, are on top with 29.6 points in as many matches with a win and a draw.
Given Providence’s tradition of being a spin-oriented wicket, it is possible leg-spinner, Devendra Bishoo could return to the side and complement left-arm spinner, Veerasammy Permaul and off-spinner, Kevin Sinclair. In the absence of Reifer, Sinclair is also expected to bat higher.
The two sides had mixed fortunes so far, particularly with the bat. Red Force scored heavily in their matches with 460 for 4 declared against Jamaica Scorpions and 552 for 9 declared against Leeward Islands Hurricanes.
Red Force skipper, Darren Bravo said, “so far so good and hopefully we can continue with the same sort of attitude and generally try our best to perform…”
Bravo, the leading run scorer for the side so far added that he is just looking to take on the responsibility and perform every time for the team.
Jaguars, have contrastingly scored 388, 209, 258 and 24 without loss when chasing.
Assistant Coach/Manager of the home side, Shivnarine Chanderpaul made a call for the players to be more responsible with their batting and avoid soft dismissals.
“You want guys to be a little more responsible when they are batting, the last match we had a little too much of soft dismissals and hopefully we can eliminate those and go into this match and make people work hard and if you get out, you get out off of a good ball…” he said.
Chanderpaul pointed out that there were six half centuries so far but said that none was converted to a ton. He stated, “One of our plan is someone carrying on and getting big scores, we had couple of fifties…I think we’re playing a bit loose, you need to dig in and focus and start back your innings and stretch it as far as you can.”
Tagenarine Chanderpaul and Christopher Barnwell are currently the highest run getters for Jaguars with 146 and 140 respectively.
Contrastingly, four Red Force batsmen have chalked up tons, three of which are unbeaten. Bravo leads the run charts for the twin island republic with 199 runs and is closely followed by Joshua Da Silva who is six runs behind.
Looking at the bowling, left-arm spinner, Akeal Hosein has distanced himself from the pack with 15 wickets with the next highest tally coming from off-spinner Brian Charles and seamer, Odean Smith with six a piece.
Jaguars, however, have shared the wickets. Pacer, Nial Smith has taken 10 wickets so far while Keon Joseph and Permaul have eight scalps each. In Reifer’s absence Barnwell could be expected to play a bigger role with his medium pace.
The Jaguars’ Manager admitted that Red Force have been playing well so far but is confident in hosts’ plans to bear fruition and see them coming out on top.
Meanwhile, Bravo indicated that their main objective is to go out there and play well on all facets of the game, noting that in the last match the fielding had let them down a bit.
GUYANA JAGUARS SQUAD: Leon Johnson (Captain), Anthony Bramble, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Chandrapaul Hemraj, Vishaul Singh, Tevin Imlach, Kevin Sinclair, Ronaldo Alimohamed, Keon Joseph, Devendra Bishoo, Nial Smith, Veerasammy Permaul, Christopher Barnwell, Esaun Crandon (Head Coach), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (Assistant Coach/Manager), Neil Barry Jr. (Physiotherapist)
RED FORCE SQUAD: Darren Bravo (Captain), Yannick Ottley (vice-captain), Jeremy Solozano, Keagan Simmons, Jason Mohammed, Joshua Da Silva, Yannic Cariah, Terrance Hinds, Bryan Charles, Kissoondath Magram, Akeal Hosein, Odean Smith, Uthman Muhammad. Mervyn Dillon (Coach), David Furlonge (Manager)
