Milton Pydanna

MILTON ROBERT PYDANNA
Milton Pydanna was an excellent wicketkeeper and useful lower-order batsman who played with distinction for Berbice and Guyana and in three One Day Internationals for the West Indies between 1971 and 1988.
He was an integral part of the Police Sports Club in the local first division circuit and his quality work both behind and in front of the stumps caused the selectors to include him in the national team to contest the 1971 Shell Shield Tournament.
He acquitted himself well, playing in all four matches of the competition as well as against the touring Indians and finished his first season with 115 runs at 23.00 per innings gloving five catches and effecting a solitary stumping.
Pydanna held the position for the next two years but while he excelled with 18 dismissals in 1972 and 19 in 1973, he could average only 17.50 (1972) & 13.12 (1973) with the bat.
Subsequently, he lost his place to Lonsdale Skinner in 1974 after he started the season and again failed with the bat. A year later, the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) stumper, Stephen Bamfield, edged him out of the side.
While Pydanna was having difficulty with the willow, the Trinidadian Dereck Murray & the Barbadian David Murray were called to West Indian duty ahead of him primarily because of their positive contributions with the bat.
Nevertheless, he fought his way back into the national team in 1978 and remained the country’s first-choice keeper for the next decade.
In 1979, he registered his first first-class century (127) for Berbice against Demerara in the Jones Cup final and in the following year he cracked an unbeaten 117 for Guyana against Jamaica in Montego Bay in the Regional Shell Shield competition.
In 1980-81, with the international career of Deryck Murray ended, Pydanna was chosen to be a part of the squad to Pakistan as David Murray’s deputy.
He played in two of the three ODI’s at Karachi & Sialkot.
He contested his final international game in Guwahati on WI tour to India in 1983.
Pydanna continued to be engaged at the first-class level until 1988 when he finally bowed out with 85 appearances during which he accumulated 2223 runs at 20.02 per innings. He also pouched 152 catches and effected 36 stumpings.
What are your thoughts on Pydanna’s sojourn? Did you see him play?