“Guyana’s Amazon Conquerors’ Efforts – All Over, With No Shouting!”

Sep 26, 2010 Sports

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By the 3rd defeat, by Highveld Lions, Guyana’s Amazon Conquerors seemed a disheartened lot, and were eliminated from the Champions League T-20 2010 with that loss.  They played desperately poorly.
For the Lions, Ethan O’Reilly was impressive; 4-0-27-4; Man of the Match.  More than that, he has shown that he has great pace for the future.
However, Guyana did fight in the 4th game, even though, somehow, the team still started with holes in the batting line-up.  South Australia is on a roll and, now, could win it all!
The first thing that you will hear from the Amazon Conquerors, and some of their noisy but sometimes cricket-ignorant supporters, is that CLT-20 2010 was a great experience for them, and that it will bode well for the future.  What future is that, exactly?
For want of other, unprintable words, that is absolute garbage!  No-one; no team; goes into sporting battle for experience.  They go to win.  Any other sentiment is rank foolishness.
I would go further.  If gaining experience was all that was entertained, or planned, for the Amazon Conquerors, then they were losers before they even left for the tournament.
Also, if any team will have played in any game, or tournament, and did not win, then that team is a loser, regardless of what anyone else might describe it as.  Black is not green!
I am also sure that when great noises were being made before the team’s departure, gaining experience was the very last call on anyone’s mind, especially when there were so many other important things; moneys and lucrative contracts etc; to be contemplated.
No-one expected the Guyana Amazon Conquerors’ efforts to be so poor.  Only in the last game, against South Australia, did they even look like a fairly cohesive unit.  Why is that?
I would even suggest that not one Guyanese player enhanced his cricketing reputation on this tour, it was such a shambles.  Some have certainly harmed theirs!
The word ‘battle’ also suggests that some might actually perish; in this case figuratively; from the maulings gotten when they lose!  At least, I hope that some do lose their places.  Only time will tell, as we in these parts now seem to want to award and court failures!
I sincerely hope that they take a clear, full and extremely honest look at themselves, from top tip to toe, to see what had gone so very wrong with this endeavor.
Two people that I have known all of my adult life, Chetram Singh, Guyana Cricket Board’s President, and Claude Rafael, GCB’s Chairman of Selectors, were on that tour.
I expect that they both would be candid and downright honest with their thoughts on things.  If they are the proud Guyanese that they profess to be, they will deliver.
There was some noise about the team’s coach, Ravindra Seeram, being out of his depth, since he is only a Level 1 Coach, in a scale of 1 – 5.  That might or might not be so, but coaches do not make sportsmen.  The cricketers are responsible for their own efforts.
Cricket coaches help with enhancing technique, rhythm and balance, not with pride of performance, or even physical presence.  Those are always the players’ responsibilities.
Coach Roger Harper’s presence may have made some little difference, especially with his positive attitude, but coaches certainly are not there to be baby-sitters.  Representative cricket teams are, supposedly, made up, even at Under 19 level, of relatively grown folks; “big boys here!”  In this instance, the youngest Guyana team member was 20 years old.
When each of these cricketers looks in the mirror, the only person that should be standing there should be himself, except and unless something so exceptional happened otherwise, that is not so normal.  To be that dependent on any other person is downright parasitical!
What Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean must also note well is that various club teams with assorted individuals; some internationals, others budding stars; have easily outplayed the supposedly best team in our parts, based on the recent West Indies competition.  That is not a good sign at all.
That should also have been a great eye-opener, if indeed we did not already know the reality, even with Trinidad & Tobago’s magnificent 2009 CLT-20 effort to refer to.
Our regional cricket, generally, in comparison to many other countries, is quite poor.  All that we can now hope for is that the initiatives of the WICB bring fruit in the very near future, even though the WICB seems to have to fight for every inch of any progress at all!
I also hope that none of the other Caribbean teams will now suggest that they could have done better than the Conquerors.  They did have their chance and they blew it too, since Guyana did win the Caribbean’s tournament.
If Trinidad & Tobago, or any other Caribbean team, wants that winning moniker again, then, it must win the home series, starting with the 50-over competition next month in Jamaica, and hopefully, improve the game status, as improvement is surely needed.
Overall, in CLT-20 2010, Guyana’s inflexibility put paid to its effort and presence.
How could Travis Dowling still have played in Games 3 & 4, after his dismal contributions – 10 from 17 deliveries – Game 1, and 7 from 18 deliveries – Game 2?  Worse, sadly, at times, he, and others too, looked as if they did not know anything about batting at all!
For that matter, no part of the Conquerors’ game was positive.  The batting was direction-less, while the bowling was tooth-less.  Even the fielding fell away badly.  As I have mentioned previously, emotion has no part in professional sport.  If you are not good enough, you must make way for others.  “Feeling sorry for him” does not count!
Do not tell me about conditions, adverse or otherwise either.
Those make or break players, in any sport, as was demonstrated by Rafael Nadal weeks ago, when he won the US Open Tennis Championships.  The hard-court has been his least favourite surface, yet he won there too.  That is what real champions do.  They win, under any conditions!
In passing, many have suggested that the 1970’s and 1980’s West Indies cricket teams were the best ever.  That is as maybe, but there is one irrefutable fact about those teams.
That era’s teams got that super-imposition based on the fact that they beat all teams; Pakistan, India, Australia, England, New Zealand; all in their own foreign backyards.
Former T&T and West Indies cricketer, Willie Rodriguez, whom I was fortunate to meet last week, would have told you that too.  He did inform me that he had had a very near death experience with his heart.  What a loss that would have been, as he was easily the best manager our West Indies cricket team ever had.  He says that I am biased – true!
Overcoming adverse and unknown conditions, to come out positive at the end, is what championships are all about; in sport and, indeed, in life.  Guyana’s Amazon Conquerors simply did not have what it would have taken to do just that!

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