This year’s Regional U – 19 cricket tournament was cancelled by Cricket West Indies (CWI) because of the growing concerns surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic.
It is well known that the U – 19 tournament is usually a launching pad for youngsters who aspire to don the Maroon colours while the board’s talent spotting group uses the tournament to identify the region’s future stars.
However, it is unfortunate for both the players and the board that the 2020 edition had to be cancelled.
As such, Stabroek Sport reached out to one of Guyana’s most successful U – 19 captains, Steven Jacobs who shared his opinion about the importance of the regional U – 19 tournament. Jacobs as captain led Guyana to back-to-back titles in 2006 and the year after.
In his nostalgia, Jacobs, who went on to lead a lean first-class career, relative to his talent, spoke of the exciting composition of 2006 class of youngsters which clinched the three –day title on home soil.
“In 2006, we had a lot of experienced players coming back from the previous year; Ryan Hercules, Krishna Deosarran, Gajanand Singh and Richard Ramdeen who played the year before and I really thought that was the most all-around Under – 19 team I was ever a part of,” Jacobs recalled of the talent in that bunch.
Ramdeen and Singh earlier in that year featured in the 2006 ICC Under – 19 World Cup in Sri Lanka, led by Guyanese Leon Johnson.
Jacobs, who noted that the camaraderie around the team was ideal, explained that the bunch understood the tournament and wanted to “stake a claim for themselves for future consideration” which contributed to the team’s success.
He also highlighted the advantages of playing at home and pointed out that the input of longstanding national Under – 19 coach Hubert Evans and manager Alvin Johnson were also instrumental in the dressing room.
“We were playing at home and we knew the home conditions… I must also point out that the respect shown for me as a young captain made it really easy for me, especially those guys who played before showed their respect which I appreciated,” Jacobs said.
To put things into perspective about the importance of excelling at the Under – 19 level, quite a few of those players from Guyana’s 2006 championship squad went on to play the sport at the first-class level. A few others were perhaps unlucky not to.
Jacobs, who played at the first-class level before he skippered Guyana the Under – 19s, had his career punctuated with spurts of success and frustrations.
He was the tournament’s leading all-rounder at the end of the 2006 youth tournament. Singh, on the other hand, was the architect of the batting unit after scoring over 400 runs inclusive of two centuries.
The left-hander, who possessed a 360-degree shot range, was primed for senior West Indies duties but his career seriously fell away.
Ramdeen had a solitary first-class match before he migrated while Deosarran who cracked a defiant century against Barbados – a knock which I remembered vividly against the likes of Kemar Roach – was another seriously talented batsman who didn’t go on.
Rajendra Chandrika, although he had endured a lean 2006 tournament, was the only batsman from among the lot to represent the West Indies.
In the bowling department, Veersammy Permaul and Brandon Bess represented the West Indies at the senior level and were both major contributors to Guyana’s success that year along with Hercules who copped the best fielder award.
All-rounder David Wallace – a destructive cricketer in his teens – was not carefully managed and maybe he didn’t appreciate the sport enough and never really gave himself a chance to blossom into the kind of player West Indies would have relished.
Wallace, in this era, would have been a T20 gun for hire. In tomorrow’s edition, I will share Jacob’s thoughts in the 2007 class of champs.
