Guyana Jaguars head coach, Esuan Crandon has welcomed the inclusion of West Indies trio, Shimron Hetmyer, Keemo Paul and Romario Shepherd ahead of their Regional Super50 campaign.
Jaguars began their preparation with a fitness assessment on Thursday but the trio was not present. Crandon offered an explanation, noting that Hetmyer, who opted not to tour with West Indies, was given an exemption due to his concussion protocol issue and once cleared by the medical team, is expected to join the group.
As it relates to Paul, who was given time to recover from his heavy workload of late, Crandon could not provide much information on him but said “obviously we would love to have him.”
Shepherd, on the other hand, was selected to go to Bangladesh but returned a positive COVID-19 test and was ruled out of the tour. He has since recovered and joined the Jaguars for their first match simulation at the La Bonne Intention facility Friday.
While Jaguars, who last won the tournament back in 2005, gained the trio, they are without leading spinner, Veerasammy Permaul and left-arm seaming all-rounder, Raymon Reifer, both of whom are on West Indies duties.
Crandon told Stabroek Sport, “sometimes when you lose you gain, sometimes it’s another opportunity for another youngster to step up or any other player to step up and prove their worth and I am seeing the opportunity is coming for a youngster or two in the upcoming Super50 tournament.”
On the return of the exciting players, the former seamer reckoned, “It is good to have Hetmyer, Shepherd and those guys around, guys with international experience, obviously they’ve been around the group and other players mingling around them could pick up a lot from them you know, pick their brain and a lot of other stuff.”
Crandon, who has coached West Indies and Guyana Amazon Warriors in the past, has already predicted three exciting and high intensity practice matches which will only be boosted by their inclusions.
“They are going to bring a lot of intensity and energy to our sessions when you have those guys around and they bring the professionalism to our training and so on, younger players can feed off of that and also its going to bring a good culture and we’ve always had a good culture in Guyana cricket over the years and any new player comes in they always found it easy to settle in,” Crandon highlighted.
The first practice match will bowl off from 09.00 hours at La Bonne Intention tomorrow with Leon Johnson and Hetmyer captaining the two sides.
