By Staff Reporter
Given what is at stake it just might be asking too much for the Guyana and Jamaica national cricket teams to produce a super encounter in their final round clash of the West Indies Cricket Board’s Super50 limited overs tournament today dubbed `Super Sunday’.
The fact that the Jamaicans have already qualified for the semi-finals just might mean that it is only Guyana that has all to play for.
With the knowledge that a possible semi-final berth might be possible for them in what has surely been a disappointing season just might give the Guyanese cricketers that impetus to produce a superlative effort and give themselves a chance of reaching the semi-finals of the one-day tournament.
They will need to defeat the Jamaicans while at the same time hope that Barbados, on five points and the Windward Islands, on eight points lose their encounters today against Trinidad and Tobago and the Leeward Islands respectively.
Theirs is a tall order as they will be without two of their better batsmen in Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan who have left Guyana to fulfill their contractual requirements with English County Clubs Derbyshire and Leicestershire respectively. They might also be without Narsingh Deonarine who suffered an injury in Thursday’s day/night encounter against the Combined Campuses and Colleges team which the team won by three wickets.
The Jamaicans, currently in second position behind leaders Trinidad and Tobago, are on 19 points and cannot be caught by the Guyanese, who are on a mere eight points.
With their semi-final place already in their back pocket, the onus is on Guyana to secure the win in an effort to salvage something from what has been a season to forget.
The national cricket selectors under chairman Rayon Griffith, has included Ricardo Adams and Assad Fudadin in place of the two West Indies star players Chanderpaul and Sarwan.
The absence of the two West Indies batting stars will affect the team’s batting which has been inconsistent this year in both formats of the game. It will however, give the other players an opportunity to stand up and be counted. Most of the Guyana batsmen have been guilty of not converting good starts into three figures.
Given the fact that the match is a day/night encounter winning the toss will be important as both teams might prefer batting first in the natural light to which they are accustomed to as opposed to batting under floodlights when the conditions are much cooler and the ball might be a little more difficult to handle.
Apart from their unexpected defeat to Trinidad in the previous round the Jamaicans have hardly put a foot wrong this season in both formats of the game.
The Jamaicans will look to Jermaine Blackwood who scored a half century against Trinidad, Xavier Marshall, Danza Hyatt, Tamar Lambert, Carlton Baugh and David Bernard Jr., in the batting department while left arm spinner Nikita Miller will lead the bowling department with assistance from Andrew Richardson, Bernard Jr., and Sheldon Cotterell.
Guyana team from:-Veerasammy Permaul (captain), Trevon Griffith, Assad Fudadin, Ricardo Adams, Leon Johnson, Narsingh Deonarine, Anthony Bramble, Steven Jacobs, Devendra Bishoo, Ronsford Beaton, Paul Wintz, Rajiv Ivan and Zaheer Mohamed.
Jamaica team:-Xavier Marshall, Danza Hyatt, Nkrumah Bonner, Andrew Mc Carthy, Tamar Lambert, Jermaine Blackwood, Carlton Baugh, David Bernard Jr., Nikita Miller, Andrew Richardson and Sheldon Cotterell.
