Manager of the recent unsuccessful Under-19 TCL team to Barbados, Alvin Johnson is not happy with the recent performance of his team.
And Tuesday after briefing the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) he was in no mood to shower praise on a team that failed to defend their title after two years at the helm.
According to Johnson, he is clueless about what exactly Guyana did in their final one-day match against Trinidad and Tobago, calling it the “craziest piece of batting by any Guyana team.”
Johnson stated that Guyana have one of the most impeccable records in the annals of Under-19 cricket, and recently won the championship six consecutive times from 1992-1997 and were more recently defending champions in 2006 & 2007 and to go down so meekly in the one-day match was rather a disgrace, after being able to manage the runner-up position in the three-day competition to host nation Barbados.
Duckworth/
Lewis System
Team manager Johnson admitted that in his sixth year at the helm, the Duckworth/ Lewis system always favours the team batting first and after realizing that the one-day encounter with Trinidad and Tobago was going to be rain affected he along with coach Hubert Evans and the captain and vice–captain decided to take first strike but when the rain interrupted Guyana were placed at 53-3 off 12.1 overs. And according to Evans the team failed to follow the instructions thereafter although they were told that after the game became a 24-overs one the team should bat around Foo and look for another 72 runs in the remaining over. But this did not happen since soon after the resumption Foo was the first to go and the team subsequently crumbled for 84 and the Trinidadian team led by their captain Adrian Barath hit off the runs for the loss of one wicket.
Individual
Performances
The manager was especially hard on his batting attack and he said failed to live up to the hype that they created locally, notwithstanding the fact that the team was made up of few persons who had local first class experience.
But there were five players who returned from the 2007 winning squad in new captain Eugene La Fleur, Jonathan Foo, Leon Scott, Seon Hetmyer and Totaram Bishun with a lot of weight resting on their young shoulders but they faltered.
He said that while there were no big names in the squad they were expected to excel at this level with Jonathan Foo, Jeetendra Sukhdeo, Seon Hetymer and Royan Fredericks leading the batting line. They failed but not before Sukhdeo had registered respectable totals in the first match and Hetymer was the only centurion.
The bowlers too came in for the wrath of Johnson who stated that a seasoned bowler like Totaram Bishun failed to deliver as his bowling was far below par and so too was Leon Scott.
Praise
While the team did not deserve much praise Johnson said that the middle and lower orders were under tremendous pressure to boost up the brittle top order which failed to click throughout the two tournaments as captain Le Fleur and his bottom order were forced to boost up the many meagre totals.
Meanwhile Johnson stated that another telling factor was that some six members of the squad were affected by niggling injuries as captain Le Fleur suffered an ankle injury while batting in the net causing him to miss one match. Then Leon Scott, one of the faster bowlers or even the fastest on the Guyana squad, is suffering from a lower back injury which has been brought up to the GCB and a medical analysis and treatment would be rendered. And Kevon Joseph who has been carrying an injury a few inches from the groin has also been recommended to the board for further evaluation and possible treatment.
Trevon Griffith was incapacitated after suffering an injury to his knee but Sukhdeo was the most injury prone of the squad, according to the coach as he managed to pick up three injuries on the tours. He had a strained side, then practicing in the nets he fended to a rising ball only for his bat to stick in the turf causing the bat to rise up hitting him in the arm pit, and next while a few of the Jamaicans had to be sent home after contracting chicken pox, Sukhdeo had an outbreak of boils on his chest but a subsequent check by medical officials cleared him.
The sixth man to be injured was Hetymer who the coach said was batting without the required “box” groins guard when a delivery pitched and caused him to drop to the ground reeking in pain. The manager commented, “I hoped he learnt a painful lesson and would from now on protect his jewels.”
Apart from these injuries the regular change of weather that brings on the different “strains” of the common cold was the only other health scare that the team had.
According to Johnson the squad was first encamped for two days on January 26-27, and was called the Under-19 possible, with a twenty member squad selected on February 8 after the GTM U-19 tournament. Finally a fourteen member squad was selected after a 13-day camp which was held from June 14-28.
On July 2 the Guyana team departed Guyana for Barbados where they made the unsuccessful attempt to defend their titles.
Meanwhile, only today it was brought to the media’s attention that three players had been sanctioned by the GCB with a one-year probation period requiring them to perform to the best of their ability in order to be selected. They are Ballinder Shivpersaud, Michael Felix and Denver Greaves who broke camp with permission Friday last when the sanction came into effect.
The manager said that when the team arrived in Barbados they were encamped at the Cave Hill Campus but this was deemed unacceptable to recommended standards and the Trinidadian team also joined in the protest against the treatment. Afterwards the team was moved to the Grand Barbados Resort where they spent a week because there was an international beach volleyball competition slated for that venue and the rooms were pre-booked.
As such they stayed there only one week, moving to the DV South Wind Resort where they spent one week and Johnson said that his team seemed to experience their best week there overall though the team was treated well by the host nation.
The food was not to the Guyanese liking as the manager explained that every meal contained beans but it was realized that it was a balanced diet and nutritionally good.
Level of
U-19 cricket
“The level of Under-19 cricket over the past four to five years has nosedived somewhat from what it used to be,” Johnson said. He noted that judging from this tournament as compared to a couple of years back there are only a few young talents coming out of this year’s competition and this he said is not good for cricket at all.
Later this year, according to Johnson, he hopes to have all of the local games finished in order to pick a provisional squad that will be encamped for the 2009 competition which they intend to win this time around. He noted that out of the 2008 squad there are nine eligible players but this is not a prerequisite for selection to the team as they hope to implement and enforce the stricture that schoolboys have at least a seventy-five percent attendance record in school and these systems have to be backed up or they will crumble.
“We could have done better with more application as the gelling of the team was excellent but commitment and focus were off,” Le Fleur stated.
Le Fleur who is ineligible for selection to the 2009 Under-19 squad said that he will be concentrating on making the Berbice senior team and then the national team where he hopes to become a regular fixture before finally reaching the pinnacle – the West Indies team.
