Crandon confident VP Boys winning again this year

Mar 16, 2023 Sports

Kaieteur News – New captain Royston Crandon has expressed confidence of VP Boys winning all four trophies again this year at the Canadian Premier Softball Cricket League’s various tournaments.

It was an unprecedented season for VP Boys in 2022 having surged to four championships, the T20, 15-overs, 10-10 and 100-ball Rapid.

Crandon, the pugnacious right-handed batsman, stated that he and his fellow players are eager to once again dominate proceedings when the action likely to get cracking in early May.

He also optimistic that once they play to the best of their abilities, these four trophies should stay in their possession.

“I [am] confident of retaining these four trophies again; we will be playing competitive cricket from ball one; because there are some pretty competitive teams out-there,” Crandon revealed.

Crandon replaced Rawle Scott as the leader for this year’s edition. He acknowledged Scott’s exceptional captaincy last year and is aiming to emulate the feat but anxious to get on the field to lead the side and play positive cricket, too.

“Obviously, Rawle did a great job last year; we played as a team; we played as a group of boys willing to go out there and be competitive from the start and like 2022 we will be sticking to our game’s plan come 2023 season,” Crandon commented.

The victorious VP Boys team.

Quizzed on what he attributed the success to last year, Crandon responded: “As I said we stick to our game’s plans and played really hard and smart cricket; everyone accepted his responsibility and put in the necessary effort,” the Canada-based Guyanese Crandon related.

Crandon, who represented Guyana at the first-class level and also West Indies in one-day international, believes that some new and sensational softball players in the VP Boy’s squad for the forthcoming tournaments would certainly boast the team’s confidence immensely.

“We definitely will have some good players in our team this year; they are quality players and they are expected to make an impression, so that also giving me stronger confidence that we can come out on top,” Crandon related.

For the 2022 edition, several high-profile players like Crandon, Riaz Kadir, Amit and Avish Rukhram (brothers), Raakesh Goberdhan, Dillon Heyliger, among others produced excellent performances.

Crandon also talked about many of the outstanding, individual performances from few softball specialists.

Flamboyant left-handed opening batsman Avish Rukhram slammed a magnificent 193 and had an aggregate of 308 runs from just two matches while another exciting batter Gobardhan fashioned a brilliant 170 to accumulate 304 runs but from seven innings.

Meanwhile, owner of the team Amar Punu, another Canada-based Guyanese, expressed his gratitude to all the players and again congratulated the top performers. He also echoed similar sentiments of Crandon that they will be participating to be a jubilant team by the conclusion of all the tournaments. Punu mentioned the team was very much collaborative last year and is anticipating the same level of commitment from the softball cricketers. He pointed out too, the camaraderie in the camp made a huge difference in 2022 and was confident of success. Punu also took the opportunity to express his gratitude to all the sponsors for 2022. He stated that nothing would have been possible without their generosity and also thanked everyone for supporting the team.

• Canadian Premier Softball Cricket League, championships, Rawle Scott, Royston Crandon, VP Boys