By Avenash Ramzan
Despite suffering a second successive defeat, ace batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul is backing the Guyana Jaguars to rebound and finish among the top teams in Group B of the West Indies Cricket Board’s Regional Super50.
The Jaguars, participating in the Barbados leg of the tournament, endured the worst possible start on Tuesday, sliding to a horrendous 145-run loss to Barbados Pride, after the host piled on 302, while they lost by 41 runs to Jamaica Scorpions on Thursday.
Both games were day/night encounters, and on both occasions the Jaguars batsmen failed to put up a fight. The 42-year-old Chanderpaul, who missed the first the first game due to a neck injury, was a one-man show against the Scorpions, hitting 101 as the Jaguars folded for 208 in response to 249-8.
Anthony Bramble (29), Raymon Reifer (25) and Steven Jacobs (19) apart, no other batsman reached double-figures. While the defeats have definitely put the Jaguars on the back foot in the group, Chanderpaul is optimistic about a turnaround.
“You still have a lot of games in the tournament to play, so we have to try and put this behind us as quickly as possible. We have six more games to play [in the group phase], so we have to try and play as well as we know we can, and hopefully we can win them and come out on top of the group,” the middle-order stalwart indicated.
The century was Chanderpaul’s third of the current domestic season, following his back-to-back hundreds in the Professional Cricket League Four-day competition last December.
Commenting on his knock, the former West Indies captain and world number one Test batsman, reasoned, “It was a very good wicket to bat on. Always in Barbados there is good pace, good bounce and the ball came on nice, but we lost some early wickets and it was good conditions for me to go out and play the way I played.”
He added, “We were ticking easily, it’s just that we end up losing too many wickets in the process. If we had wickets down the bottom end, we would have probably pulled off the match.”
The Jaguars’ next game, a day/night affair, is against the Group B leaders Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) Marooners on Saturday, starting at 13:30h.
It’s a game that will pit two teams occupying the two extremes on the table: CCC Marooners, with two wins from as many games, lead with nine points, while Jaguars languish in the cellar position without a point.
