Can Guyana Snap B'dos Win Streak?

When defending champions Barbados and Guyana lock heads for regional one-day supremacy at Kaiser in Jamaica, Barbados will be trying to become the first triple crowned champions of cricket in the West Indies, while the fortunate Guyana will be trying to wrest the trophy away from the defending champs.

Both Guyana and Barbados were propelled into the finals by standout bowling performances -- first by Neil McGarrell for Guyana against Jamaica, who also performed with the bat, and Ian Bradshaw who ripped the heart out of the Trinidad batting lineup in their semi final encounter.

Of note however, are the paltry scores put up by all four teams in the semi finals. This, no doubt, is in large part due to the playing of back to back games on the poor surface of the Kaiser Oval, and it is something that has to be taken up by the WICB with the sponsors Red Stripe, as far as them breaking the stranglehold that Red Stripe has on where the tournament is hosted.

As far as the finalists go, Guyana can consider themselves extremely lucky to have gotten this far, because had the weather not intervened and washed out the game between Antigua and the UWI XI, it might well have been Antigua taking on Barbados in this Red Stripe Final.

Guyana's fortunes were further bolstered by losing the toss in their semi-final encounter, Robert Samuels so misread the pitch and that, coupled with an arrogant approach where the Jamaican batsmen did everything except realize that the game has to be won out on the field, contrived to lose the match for Jamaica.

The Guyana team was not without its share of turmoil with the coach on record criticizing the captain after the loss to Barbados, and reportedly many of the Guyana players were not happy with the choice of captain, and some of the on-field tactics. To his credit, Chanderpaul seems to have been able to ignore all his many detractors and focus on the task at hand, and even though he has not rattled up any large scores, the calm way in which he handled the team in the tense semi-final against Jamaica should stand Guyana in good stead in the final encounter of the tournament.

Chanderpaul will need every trick at his disposal as he will be facing a formidable opponent led by a wily campaigner in Courtney Brown, who is arguably the best captain currently active in the Caribbean. Barbados has shown that it is a team that does its homework, and they have a potent bowling line up boasting three West Indies bowlers in Corey Collymore, Vasbert Drakes and Pedro Collins backed up by the very capable Ian Bradshaw and Ryan Hurley.

Guyana's bowling is led by West Indian discards Neil McGarrell and Mahendra Nagamootoo backed up by the underrated spin of Ronnie Sarwan, Lennox Cush and Narsingh Deonarine. The new ball duties for Guyana will be shared by Rayon Griffith and Esaun Crandon.

In the batting department, Barbados again has a decided edge with the former Test opener Sherwin Campbell opening with Dale Richards with the explosive Dwayne Smith coming in at first down. It was this same Dwayne Smith who destroyed Guyana's bowling attack when they met in the preliminary round of their group and Guyana, having seen how destructive a bat he could be, will definitely be planning a strategy on limiting his scoring opportunities. In addition to the aforementioned three, there are also veteran batsmen Floyd Reifer, the captain Browne, Ryan Hurley, Ian Bradshaw and Vasbert Drakes who are all capable with the bat.

For Guyana, in addition to Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, Guyana will be hoping for decent scores from Narsingh Deonarine and the woefully out of form, but normally explosive Lennox Cush, who has failed to trouble the scorers three of the five times that he has come to the wicket. Outside of those, Ryan Ramdass who is in his first year at this level has shown promise but has not truly stamped his authority at the top of the order, and neither has his opening partner Chattergoon, even though both have looked good in spurts. It is hoped then that the all-rounders, McGarrell and Nagamootoo will chip in with the bat and help Guyana to a challenging total.

If I were laying odds on this game I would say that Barbados owns a decided advantage over Guyana both on paper and due to the fact that they beat Guyana handily in their first encounter. However, cricket is not played on paper and as Guyana showed in the first semi final against Jamaica, cricket has to be played on the field, and on any given day, if a team sticks to the basics and does that well, oftentimes they will come out victorious.

The fans of the game will hope that the ground staff out at Kaiser would be able to prepare a competitive surface which, so far, has been the opposite of the type of surface that one would look for in the premiere One Day competition, especially coming ahead of an important tour to the African continent. If this proves to be not the case the WICB would have no choice but to start looking at other venues for hosting this tournament.