Demerara U-17s ready for Inter-County series... Bowling is team’s strength says Coach Nedd

Demerara U-17s ready for Inter-County series… Bowling is team’s strength says Coach Nedd

Sep 05, 2008 Sports

Ricardo Devers and Amir Khan

According to Coach Garvin Nedd, the Demerara under-17 cricket team is ready for the CLICO under-17 Inter-County two-day cricket competition which begins tomorrow at the Enterprise ground and feels his team’s strength is its bowling.
The 36-year-old Nedd, who took 29 wickets from 14 First-Class matches as an off-spinner between 1995 and 2000, says he is satisfied with the preparation so far.
“We have had very good weather and we have been able to do plenty of physical work in addition to match situation practice sessions which prepares the players to react in a certain way when faced with certain situations in the actual game,” the Coach told Kaieteur Sport yesterday during the team’s final practice session at the DCC ground.
Nedd, whose best bowling for Guyana at the senior level is 6-23, spoke highly of the captaincy ability shown by Dexter Solomon and described him as a gifted wicket keeper who is very matured for his age and someone who bats with a level head.
Nedd, himself a former Demerara and Guyana youth team off-spinner, says the strength of the team is the bowling and feels that once the batsmen put ‘a good score on the board’ Demerara should be hard to beat.
“I would say the strength is our spinners in off-spinner (Ricardo) Devers and West Indies under-19 leg-spinner (Amir) Khan.
I expect a lot in this competition from these two while we must remember that in (Seon) Daniels and left-arm pacer (Andre) Stoll we have a very good new ball pair which should make it difficult for the other teams to really build solid foundations against us,” Nedd opined.
Coach Nedd also has high hopes for Quincy Ovid whom he describes as a natural opener.
He said Kamal Ramkissoon, Dayanand Roopnarine, Shameer Fazal and Guyana under-15 Skipper Kwame Cross are also good batsmen and expects support from Arif Habib and Keon Franklyne with the bat.
“The top order batsmen are all talented and if Solomon and Stoll, who is playing in the team as one of the all-rounders, can also produce with the bat then I think we have the fire power to limit the others teams to under our scores,” Nedd added.
The coach said that while he might have wanted another batsman in the squad since Cross, Fazal and Franklyne can bowl, the squad is a good one and the players are all eager to get into action.
Nedd said that everyone is chipping in as the team prepares to meet Essequibo from tomorrow and while he is hoping that the Demerara Cricket Board can provide him with some new balls for his pacers to practice with, he can’t complain too much about the way preparation is going.
The Essequibo team is expected in the City today after completing a four-day camp last week on the Essequibo Coast.
(Sean Devers)