As we continue to review Steven Jacobs’ Regional Under-19 successes as skipper of Guyana’s 2006 and 2007 teams, we’ll take a look at the composition of the 2007 class and how their careers panned out after their junior playing days.
In Stabroek Sport’s March 31, 2020 edition, we spoke of the importance of the Regional U-19 tournament and how crucial it is as a talent-spotting platform.
Jacobs, in describing the 2006 group, which included Ryan Hercules, Krishna Deosarran, Gajanand Singh, Richard Ramdeen, Veerasammy Permaul, Brandon Best and Rajendra Chandrika, said that it was perhaps the most balanced U-19 team he was ever part of.
Those were unexpected words considering the fact that he shared a dressing room with Shamarh Brooks, Adrian Barath, Darren Bravo, Kieran Powell, Jason Dawes, Horace Miller, and Devon Thomas during the 2008 ICC U-19 World Cup. That was a talented West Indies U-19 bunch.
But what did he make of the 2007 Guyana U-19 team, which he led to another title success in St Kitts?
Permaul and Chandrika, along with Jacobs, were the ones who returned to the 2007 squad having tasted success in 2006 on home soil.
“In 2007, it was more of the will to win and the will to repeat that carried us over the line because we had a lot of close games but we also had a lot of fresh faces coming through,” Jacobs said.
He made specific mention of Eugene LaFleur, Seon Hetmyer – older brother of West Indies batsman Shimron – Robin Bacchus, Jonathan Foo, Chris Patadin and off-spinner Clive Andries.
“It was a bit of a scrappy team,” he reflected of his troop, which failed to win the ‘double’ after losing in the one day final to Jamaica.
“In 2007 it was about putting together parts to give you a whole unit, not like the previous team (2006) which had a lot more talent and was pretty dynamic. But like I said, it was our willingness to win in 2007 which made the difference and we actually nearly completed the double.”
Jacobs, now an entrepreneur and owner of Jacobs Jewellery and Pawn Shop, said in order to succeed at the junior level, a player must learn how to marinate passion, hunger and arrogance along with hard work.
Virat Kohli, the perfect example, is one player who mastered and used those emotions en route to success, he said. Jacobs even rued his inability to maintain his fierce and competitive nature beyond his junior playing days.
But as done in the previous article, we’ll now take a look at where the careers of the 2007 class players are today, more than a decade on.
Permaul and Chandrika, as pointed out in the previous submission, went on to play a handful of international games; the former, who has a stellar first-class career and will go down as a Guyanese spin legend, is seriously unlucky not to have had more opportunities internationally.
Vishaul Singh too had a brief stint at the international level.
Bacchus and Patadin, who at the youth level were capable hitters, never really kicked on. It is worth mentioning too that the senior Guyana side was a pretty settled one at that time.
The scripts for LaFleur and Seon Hetmyer were similar while Foo, who is still around the Guyana set up, didn’t produce the returns on investment.
Other members of that squad included Kellon Carmichael – the unity man; Totoram Bushun – a wizard with the ball at youth level; Andries – an off-spinning all-rounder; Leon Scott and Delroy Jacobs – who was excellent behind the stumps.
Additionally, it should be mentioned that Travis Blyden was unlucky to miss out on being selected while David Wallace was deemed unfit, preventing him from being part of the core of that talented bunch that year.
