Pandemic and Jaguars title loss were the lows of 2020 for Guyana’s cricket

Dec 31, 2020 Sports

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12 players opt out of Bangladesh tour as Permaul recalled

By Sean Devers

Kaieteur News – The year 2020 is finally, thankfully over! In what for most, has been a forgettable year, normal life around the World was disrupted by the deadly COVID-19 Pandemic which ravaged the global population, causing more deaths than the Spanish flu, 100 years ago.
Twenty-twenty-one arrives with hopes of a better year, free of the devastating Virus, but the reality is that the World will have to adapt and adjust to living with new norms and that will include the sports fraternity which came to a screeching halt in March.
In their limited opportunities on the field in 2020, the West Indies continued its apparent terminal decline losing four of the five Tests they played in England and New Zealand and all three of the T20s in New Zealand, while defending Regional First-Class Champions Guyana Jaguars were dethroned with two rounds remaining.
Jaguars’ five-year winning streak was broken by Barbados who claimed their 21st Regional First-Class title as the Jaguars finished fourth with 91.8 points from eight matches with three wins and three loses and two draws.
In the last round before the tournament was halted due to the pandemic, Barbados bowled out Guyana for their second lowest total of 55 (lowest 41 vs. Jamaica at Sabina Park) at Providence where Guyana were dismissed (in 2014) for 67 chasing 69 to win.
Barbados made 174 with Kraigg Brathwaite top scoring with 48. Keemo Paul took 3/62 for the Jaguars who were blasted out for 55 in 28.1 overs as Shimron Hetmyer struggled for 55 balls to top score with 14.
Kemar Roach had 5/20 for the Bajans who in their second innings, led by 84 from Brathwaite, reached 210 in 66.3 overs. Paul captured 4/52 for the South Americans who were bowled out for 94 batting a second time with only Paul offering any resistance with a cameo 22-ball 36. Kemar Roach finished with 4/36 to give the visitors victory by 235 runs.
These results for West Indies fans at home and in the diaspora were almost as depressing as the continued rise in Covid cases in Guyana and globally.
The year commenced for West Indies cricket with the West Indies Masters participating in the Over-50 World Cup in South Africa and the 54th edition of the Regional First-Class tournament being played in the West Indies.

The Over-50s Cricket World Cup was staged in and around Cape Town and was cancelled because of the Covid-19 virus during the course of the third round of matches which were then abandoned after the first innings. West Indies were in pool ‘B’ along with England, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Wales and Namibia.
The Regional First-Class four-day tournament started on January 9, 2020 and was scheduled to conclude on April 5, however, on March 13, Cricket West Indies suspended the tournament, for a minimum of 30 days, due to the COVID-19 pandemic before cancelling the final two rounds on March 24 with the Bajans on an unassailable lead on the points table with 134.8 points. Second placed Trinidad & Tobago finished on 94.6.
The Jaguars started their title defence auspiciously when, led by a Man-of-the- Match performance from Debutant pacer Nial Smith, they defeated the Leewards by 10 wickets in Antigua. The genuinely quick Smith, the son of former National Coach Albert Smith had 6-55, but they lost their second game to Barbados and only managed two more wins from their next six matches.
There were a few bright spots for the Jaguars but inconsistency throughout the tournament let them down this year. In the fifth round in Grenada, Jaguars Skipper Leon Johnson scored an unbeaten 189 against the Windwards to reach 6,000 first-class runs. Chris Barnwell scored 107 in the same game when Guyana made their highest total in the six-team tournament as they reached 426 in the drawn encounter.

But only Johnson and Barnwell scored centuries for Guyana and passed 400 runs; Johnson made 472 runs from eight matches with one century and three fifties, while Barnwell scored 437 from eight matches with one ton and two half-centuries.
Vishaul Singh with 381 runs from seven matches with three fifties, was in the aggregate for Guyana but only Chanderpaul Hemraj (329 from 6 matches with three 50s), Anthony Bramble (339 with two 50s) and Tagenarine Chanderpaul (315 from 8 matches with three 50s) of the others, reached 250 runs with Hemraj’s average of 36.55 being the best by a Guyanese this season.
Playing against host Jamaica, left-arm spinner Permaul captured 7-59 and 8-18 to register the second best match figures in West Indies Regional Cricket since 1966. Permaul, with a possible four more innings to bowl, was on track to break his own record of 67 wickets which he captured in 2015. He ended with the most wickets this season with 50, the third time he has taken 50 scalps in a single season.
Permaul joined off-spinner Shane Shillingford and left-arm spinner Nakita Miller as the only bowlers with 500 regional first class wickets and bagged three five-wickets and two 10-wicket hauls in the truncated 2020 season.
Smith had 20 wickets from seven games and recorded two five-wicket hauls but only Bajan born left-arm pacer Raymon Reifer with 16 from seven matches, passed 15 wickets for Guyana.
0ff-spinner Kevin Sinclair made his first-Class debut against Barbados at the Kensington Oval in Barbados on January 16 and finished the season with 12 wickets from six matches, while Pacer Keon Joseph also ended with 12 wickets for Guyana. Wicket-Keeper Anthony Bramble scored 339 runs with two fifties and had 27 dismissals including five stumpings.
Twenty-four centuries registered with five batsmen scoring two tons, while Jamaican Jermaine Blackwood scored 768 runs to be the tournament’s leading batsman with one century and six fifties, while Bajan Kyle Mayers with 654 runs including two tons and five fifties was second in the runs aggregate. The ever green Devon Smith was the other batsman with 600 runs, scouring 649 with a century and four half-centuries.
Permaul’s 50 wickets were the most, while pacer Chemar Holder and Akeil Hosien, with 36 wickets each, were the other bowlers in the tournament to take more than 35 wickets.
On the International arena West Indies and England became the first teams to compete in a Test with England winning the last two Tests after West Indies had won the first Test to take the series 2-1 in July.
England’s Benn Stokes was the only batsmen in the three-series to reach 300 runs with 363 with a century and a fifty at an Average of 90.75, while Blackwood, who made two half-centuries in 211 runs was the leading batsman for the West Indies.
Pacer Shannon Gabriel (11), Skipper Jason Holder and fellow Bajan Roston Chase with 10 each were the best West Indian bowlers.
West Indies traveled to New Zealand and the two times World Cup Champions lost all three of the T20 matches and were beaten in both Tests by an innings to lose all five international matches on the tour.
The West Indies Women toured England for a five-match T20 series which commenced on September 20 and despite Deandra Dottin’s two fifties in her 185 runs from five innings to end as the leading run-scorer, no other West Indian batsman reached 100 runs the visitors lost all five games.
The year ended with the selection of the West Indies team to tour Bangladesh with Test captain Jason Holder, limited-overs captain Kieron Pollard, and Test vice-captain Roston Chase are among 12 players who have pulled out of next month’s tour of Bangladesh amid Covid-19 concerns.
Darren Bravo, Shamarh Brooks, Sheldon Cottrell, Evin Lewis, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran are the other players who declined the opportunity to tour due to Covid-19 related concerns, while All-rounder Fabian Allen and wicketkeeper-batsman Shane Dowrich are unavailable because of personal reasons.
Permaul with 18 wickets from six Test matches, was recalled for a Test tour for the first time in five years and is the lone Guyanese selected in the Test squad, while Romario Shepherd in the only Guyanese in the ODI squad. Three ODIs and two Tests will be played and the tour begins with the first ODI on January 20.

 

 

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