Carl Hooper, the Guyana Amazon Warriors Head Coach says sharp fielding and aggressive bowling are some of the key characteristics which the ongoing training camp will embody for the next few days, in his quest to help the local franchise win the 2015 Hero Caribbean Premier League (HCPL) T20 tournament.
“Specifically, I’m big on getting a lot of good aggressive fielding in and things like attacking the ball, throwing and hitting the stumps. I also want to encourage the bowlers especially to be more proactive, this is one of the things that we actually discussed this morning at our meeting before we started the day”.
“Those are two areas I want to improve upon, the bowlers to be proactive just to be one step ahead of the batsmen, good variation and being able to execute and then good aggressive run outs and to save some runs in the field”, said Hooper yesterday during an interview with Stabroek Sports at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence.
Present at the rainy first day of camp were the local players: Christopher Barnwell, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ronsford Beaton, Trevon Griffith, Assad Fudadin, Paul Wintz along with the Guyana Under-19 players: Shimron Hetmyer, Kemo Paul, Akshya Persaud and Sherfane Rutherford who are youth players in the Warriors franchise all of whom underwent a series of cardiovascular exercises before rain interrupted.
The ex-Guyana and West Indies all-rounder, who took over the coaching role from another former Guyana and Windies player, Roger Harper, expounded on the camp’s itinerary for the days ahead which will continue with some intense exercise, cricket-related simulations and will be capped off by two practice matches on June 15 and 16.
“Basically we wanted to start today obviously, we had a meeting this morning about some of the things we would try to implement in the camp obviously we will pay a lot of attention to detail and planning and then have a chance to go into the nets and execute”.
“That has not been happening we had some bad weather we have to try and make the best of it, so far we are not off to a great start and hopefully the weather will get better the next couple of days and we can implement the things we have scheduled for this camp,” Hooper explained.
The 48 year-old who played 227 ODIs for the West Indies is confident that the slightly new-look Warriors are well equipped with the necessary tools for winning this year’s tournament and is optimistic that the local players in the side will play significant roles in that quest.
“Well we’ve got a good squad, I mean the one thing I learnt last year when I was at the Hawksbill (Antigua), was that it was very important to have support from the local players and Guyana has always been a good Regional team.”
Hooper continued, “When you have players the calibre of Shivnarine Chanderpaul who is back with us that’s a huge plus, we also got (Devendra) Bishoo, (Veerasammy) Permaul just to name a few and these guys will add nicely to the overseas players when they come in, so I think we have a good squad just like everything else most of the other teams who have good squads too but the end of the day we have to prepare well and have a decent crack at winning this year”.
The new coach indicated that Australian Brad Hodge will be arriving Sunday to join the team while the remainder of the squad who are currently involved in international obligations will meet up with the Warriors in Barbados ahead of their first game.
When asked about his views on the Warriors not being afforded the luxury of training together as a full unit and whether that would possibly hamper the team’s gelling process, Hooper said, “I wouldn’t have thought so, the thing about it is that today T20 is being played all around the world and people fly in two days before a game and are good to go and are professional enough to understand what is expected”.
“The one good thing about it is that we would love to have all of them at the camp to build the team spirit and camaraderie but I think two days in Barbados before the game when all the players arrive will be good enough to gel the team.”
The former Kent and Lancashire player said that apart from coaching the warriors, he is adamant on one day returning to Guyana in order to facilitate a system which will help to rejuvenate school cricket, an area the all-rounder said is vital for the growth of the game.
“Whenever I come back to Guyana or the Caribbean I would sit and talk with ex-players and I could remember the environment I came through as a youngster. School cricket is good and hopefully one day I would be back in Guyana. One of the things I would love to implement is a school system and have games going on.”
The warriors will continue their training at the National Stadium today before engaging in the two practice games next week with a Guyana select XI. They will open the tournament in a highly anticipated rematch of last year’s final against the defending champions, Barbados Pride on June 20
