I must say, Queen’s Park Cricket Club has truly been instrumental in grooming young national and regional cricketing talent, many of whom have gone on and entertained the cricketing world.
Joyfully, I remember the early days of Dwayne Bravo, now that he has announced his retirement from international cricket.
I was privileged to be appointed Cricket Captain of the esteemed club in 1997 after Chris Galt stepped down after many years at the helm. Looking back, one might say that it was a bit controversial, but the then cricket committee made a bold move to invest heavily in very young talent, in an attempt to move the Club forward and create the next generation of local, regional and international superstars. Unfortunately, we left out of the First XI some talented stalwarts.
I truly believe that method of thinking has continued ever since with successive Cricket Committees and the results are there to show. We can easily name brothers Dwayne and Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Kevon Cooper, Akeal Hosein, Joshua Da Silva, not forgetting just before them the likes of the Jan brothers, Imran and Asif, Ricardo Paty, Rodney Sooklal, Zaheer Ali, Navin Chan… I can go on and on and on…..and of course, the latest addition only this week in Jeremy Solozano. The list of local, regional, and international players produced since is quite lengthy, and I’m proud to be a part of helping to create such success.
Energy, fitness, and a highly improved out-fielding team were on top of the agenda. We trained relentlessly off-season. Along with some fresh faces, as previously mentioned, enter Dwayne Bravo at only age 15 to Championship cricket. If I wanted energy, I got it times 10! His private coach at the time was none other than QPCC member Charles Guillen, who took an enterprising youngster and helped develop his batting technique in particular. Shades of his dad, Noel one might say? But make no mistake, mentors, coaches, advisors… it didn’t matter much, no one was going to stop the Champion. He couldn’t possibly be more self-motivated.
Other than the experienced Gregory Davis, Clint Pamphille, now umpire Garfield Hodge, Earnil Ryan, Richard Smith, Rajendra Dhanraj, and Suruj Ragoonath briefly, it was all boys 17 and under that made up the majority of the team.
We selected Dwayne as an opening batsman, didn’t bowl at all as he was just a gentle medium pacer, and didn’t have the best start to the season. He got brief starts with scores in the 20s, mostly. As some of the senior players returned from national duty, they would naturally replace one or two players.
I can say openly now that it was suggested by most of the then cricket committee that Dwayne was one of those to be dropped to the second or third XI. But the Cricket Administrator at the time, the wise head of Bryan Davis, left it to the captain to always have the final choice. The way I saw it, Dwayne scored 20s yes, but each innings saved about 20 runs in the outfield and even at that age took some breathtaking catches. As far as I was concerned, that’s a score of 40 plus in my book. I’m no guru, but in him, I thought I saw something special. I kept him in. He’s never let me down.
His season didn’t get much better with the bat, but he looked more comfortable at that level with each match played.
It’s amazing what a little height and shoulders do for a young cricketer. I saw it in Brian Lara who could barely get the ball off the square as a kid, to dancing down the track and hitting straight sixes with the sweetest of timing only a year later.
At the end of Dwayne’s first season, he was the first at nets only 4-5 months later in Sept/Oct along with some of us, eager to get into form for the new season. I remember it like yesterday. He obviously had to wait his turn to bat and we threw the ball to him to enjoy our own time batting. Dwayne as usual enthusiastically ran in to bowl and BANG, it hit my blade much harder than it did mere months earlier. Not tearaway pace by any stretch of the imagination, but what a difference it was to his gentle medium stuff.
It wasn’t a fluke….he did it over and over and got quicker and stronger. He also started timing the ball better when he batted. Here was a young man clearly practicing a lot in his spare time. I’m sure spending endless hours on the field day and night in his hometown of Santa Cruz. There’s more I can say, but I’ll leave it here for now.
Dwayne progressed through the North Zone, national youth teams, eventually the senior national team, and onto WI and international franchise stardom…..I don’t need to include all the stats. His contribution has truly been memorable and I’m thrilled to see that he’s been a tremendous success. Also impressive in my book is how he’s already begun to help the next generation of players across the region.
Congratulations Dwayne on a distinguished career and your retirement from wearing the maroon colours. Thank you and best wishes on the Champion’s next journey.
