Crandon predicts intense practice matches
Guyana Jaguars head coach, Esuan Crandon, is predicting an intense performance when his training squad takes part in three practice matches ahead of the Regional Super50.
Crandon spoke to the media on the sidelines of the team’s fitness assessment at the National synthetic track, Leonora on Thursday.
He explained, “Yes I am expecting keenly contested practice games coming up…I think looking at the standard and output today we should expect high quality and intensity throughout our practice matches with regards to fitness levels, you know three competitive games and hopefully we can get some good weather and preparation heading this Super50 tournament.”
The former Guyana pacer based his predictions on what he saw from the players’ fitness level.
“I think with this here, most guys have touched the acceptable level of fitness, some have exceeded that well over that mark and some just below that, it is expected some guys have been doing stuff on their own, not being apart of our training, unsupervised and so on but those guys I’m sure can bounce back and get where we want them to be,” he noted.
Crandon admitted that having a good team on paper does not guarantee championship glory, highlighting Guyana’s powerful squads in the past which have not won the Super50 title since 2005. However, he is satisfied that the best players in the country that are available are here.
“I think over the years we would have had good teams in the Super50 tournament but we have not managed to pull it together and win that is the most important thing, good teams on paper does not win you competitions and so on but I think we obviously have the best players available in the country at the moment to choose from and obviously their performance would give them a good chance or opportunity to get into the final 15,” he stated.
The former Guyana Amazon Warriors coach reasoned that though the squad has not yet been named, a number of factors are being considered with a number of players competing for their place.
“We know we have regular players who have been around and performing for us but at the end of the day you got to look at current form, you look at experience and how consistent guys have been and so on so I think there’s some work to be done, it’s going to be a little bit challenging for a couple spots, obviously different guys vying for different spots in the team but we will see how it goes obviously guys will have the opportunity to prove themselves in a couple of days,” he explained.
The teams, led by Leon Johnson and Shimron Hetmyer respectively will clash in the first match at La Bonne Intention on Monday and followed up by matches on Thursday and Saturday. All matches begin from 09.00 hours.