Deonarine, Bishoo & Barnwell dropped from Guyana squad

Test players Narsingh Deonarine, Devendra Bishoo and Shiv Chanderpaul along with West Indies t20 player Christopher Barnwell have been replaced by pacer Ronsford Beaton, who returns from injury, off-spinner Zaheer Mohamed, opener Trevon Griffith and West Indies under-19 left-handed batsman Shemron Hetymer who could make his First-Class debut this season.

Deonarine took seven wickets for 179 runs but had a nightmare with the bat with scores of 0 & 38, 0 & 0, 0 & 38, and 19 & 0.

Barnwell did not deliver with the bat. He had scores of 34 & 14, 2 & 4, 13 & 4, and 22 & 11. He captured one four-wicket haul against Windward Islands (4/54) but nothing substantial in the other matches, while Bishoo had mixed fortunes with a total of 13 wickets for 366 runs. He captured one five-wicket haul (5/71) against Barbados but struggled to get batsmen out after that.

Chanderpaul opted to leave the team to play in the English County Championships. After returning from injury he played two matches but did not flourish with the bat as many would have expected. He had scores of 26 & 18, and 8 & 26.

While Barnwell’s omission has raised a few eyebrows, major changes to the struggling team were not surprising and Guyana’s Coach Esaun Crandon feels that several reasons contributed to the team’s poor showing in their first four matches.

“There were many reasons why we did not perform to our best against Jamaica, Barbados, the Windwards and CCC and I am hoping that those selected for our next match from Friday in Antigua play for pride and our country. We are the only team with someone who has not scored a century and this is a great opportunity for one of our batters to put his hand up and get a century for himself and his country,” a disappointed Crandon said.

The 32-year-old who has 90 wickets from 38 First-Class games, lamented a lack of confidence, players playing for their positions, a general lack of urgency by most of the batsmen while not turning over the strike, having to play ‘catch-up’ cricket most of the time and not enough control by the bowlers were among the reason for Guyana only being able to amass 17 points among three losses and draw.

“After a while I felt the guys lost confidence and began playing for their positions more than for the team. We did not make a bigger effort to score quicker and rotate the strike because they didn’t want to take too many risks and get out,” the former fast bowler opined.

“We batted too slowly at the top in the first innings and this put pressure on the batsmen to come which meant we were always playing catch up cricket. Our plan was to bat five sessions. If we had done and scored at a reasonable rate we would have made over 400 runs and gotten some batting bonus points,” the Berbician explained.

Crandon said he was expecting more from the spinners since most of the other spinners in the competition tied down the Guyanese batsmen.

“Although (Veerasammy) Permaul has the most wickets (27) in the competition he also conceded the most runs in the tournament and released the pressure on the batsmen at crucial times. Bishoo had the second most wickets for us but he bowled too many bad balls,” Crandon disclosed.

Crandon was quick to point out that while the bowlers, especially the new ball attack against CCC were taken apart by Shacaya Thomas, the bowlers tried but too many times the Guyana first innings score was so small that we could not maintain attacking fields for long.

“The pacers did not pick up early wickets often enough and the opposition batsmen jumped on us,” Crandon added.

“I know the people in Guyana are very disappointed with us right now but if we can win our next two games for the people and if a few of our batters, especially the young ones, can make a century or two I believe a few people will be happy even if we can’t win the tournament anymore,” Crandon continued.

When asked if Shiv Chanderpaul was ever asked to bat higher in the order, Crandon informed that Skipper Leon Johnson did so and the veteran left-hander said the younger players should be allowed to bat before him.

The Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) put everything in place to ensure that the team was well prepared and the Executives are very disappointed with the team’s results and the selfish attitude of some of the players.

“We (GCB) held a meeting with the team management and we are of the view that they (Guyana team) were playing as individuals and not as a team. We have made some major changes and at the end of the tournament we will do a post mortem and try to devise plans for the way forward,” GCB Secretary Anand Sanasie revealed.

Sanasie said that he was hoping for an improved performance in the remaining games since the Board invested heavily in the team’s preparation this year.

The team, which departs today for Antigua reads: Leon Johnson (Captain), Assad Fudadin, Amir Khan, Trevon Griffith, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Zaheer Mohamed, Ronsford Beaton, Anthony Bramble, Veerasammy Permaul (Vice Captain), Shimron Hetmyer, Raun Johnson, Keon Joseph, Chanderpaul Hemraj. The Coach is Esaun Crandon and the Manager is Alvin Johnson.

kaieteurnewsonline.com