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Cricket development is in a poor state
Dear Editor
I can’t help but feel sad for the state of Guyana’s cricket development and our player development as a whole, having watched the ongoing Franchise League tournament that is being used as a yardstick to select the Guyana Jaguars team for the upcoming Regional Super50 Tournament to be played in Trinidad and Barbados respectively.
The reason I am sad is because looking at the scores, we see that teams struggled to post scores of 200. Some teams struggled to even post 150 from their allotted 50 overs. It’s true that a lot of the matches had seen overs reduced due to inclement weather but mostly what I saw was teams getting bowled out cheaply.
Of note is that spinners dominate the tournament, though there were pace bowlers who were impressive in their spells.
However, with all due respect to the spinners who I’m sure played their hearts out, there are two things I see here that can be the cause of batsmen not scoring runs. The very first issue is that the grounds at which all these games are playing have poor pitches that are low and slow, giving the spinners the advantage and it puts our fast bowlers to a disadvantage. However the biggest disadvantage is faced by the batsmen, who would not be able to judge the ball properly.
Over time this causes our batsmen to develop some techniques that may be detrimental to their success at higher levels, as evidenced by Vishual Singh’s trouble in Tests during the Pakistan tour in the Caribbean.
Editor, all of this does not bode well in the long term if things are left the same. We need better pitches for these grounds that games will be played on and they should be up to international standard, as these players eventually have to play in the Super50 which will be played on such pitches, and our player will struggle due to the lack of proper techniques when the pitch is bouncing more evenly and consistently.
My suggestion would be for the Government of Guyana to expand the Sports Subvention that is granted to Local Authorities to improve the pitches and overall infrastructure of the various sports facilities in the country, starting with the former First Class grounds such as Blairmont, Skeldon, Bourda and other similar grounds throughout the country.
These grounds, it would seem, were left to die a slow death as the pavilions and fences in some cases were left to fall apart. Only Blairmont’s pavilion was recently renovated but the pitch remains the same. We need these pitches to be improved, so that we can develop more players in the vein of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and more recent players like Shimron Hetymer and Shurfane Rutherford, both of whom made a big splash in the 2018 CPL.
Editor, I know that some readers may say that putting money towards sports may be meaningless and only few become successful, but the truth is, sports helps us to grow mentally as well. It helps us develop a more positive outlook and instills confidence in people, and gives them a positive output of their energies.
Sports has also done a lot to make social cohesion and it may even accelerate the process if handled prudently. And Guyana is a cricket mad nation, as the CPL has proven year in and year out, despite the poor showing of West Indies in world cricket, aside from T20s.
Sincerely
Amir Khan
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