Cricket players born in Guyana represent the West Indies team on the international stage. The West Indies team draws its players from several sovereign states—Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Barbados, for example—as well as British territories and the US Virgin Islands.
The team has also featured dozens of Guyanese nationals since 1928, when Maurice Fernandes served as a captain of the West Indies team. These players have represented their country on West Indies in Tests, Twenty20 Internationals, and One Day Internationals competitions. Below are five of the most prominent Guyanese cricket players of all time:
- Carl Hooper
Born in Demerara in 1966, Carl Hooper played local first division cricket while still in primary school. He established himself as an effective batsman with impressive bowling technique in his teenage years. Hooper first represented Guyana in 1983 at the Neil & Massey Regional Youth Tournament in Jamaica.
He showcased his bowling ability the following year at the Northern Telecom Regional Youth Championship in Barbados. Shortly after, Hooper made his debut with the West Indies youth team in a Test match against England. He threw 234 balls with the West Indies Under-19 team and allowed 88 runs and five wickets.
Hooper played for the senior West Indies Test team from 1987 to 2002. During that time, he threw 13,794 balls and allowed 5,635 runs and 114 wickets. He also earned a reputation for being a strong slip fielder.
Hooper was named the Indian Cricket Cricketer of the Year in 1995 and won the Walter Lawrence Trophy in 1998. Outside of international competition, he played for the English clubs Kent and Lancashire and, in 2003, became the second player to record a century against all 18 English county teams.
- Clive Lloyd
Arguably one of the greatest players Guyana has ever produced, Clive Lloyd, also known as “Supercat,” was captain of the West Indies team during its most successful period. He served in this capacity from 1974 to 1985 and was the first West Indies player to record 100 international caps.
He captained the team during a string of 27 consecutive matches without a loss and guided the West Indies to win the inaugural Cricket World Cup in 1975. He also served as captain of the team in its repeat victory four years later as well as in 1983, when the West Indies reached the final before losing to India.
Lloyd also played 490 first-class games in his career and registered in excess of 31,000 runs at an average of 49.26. He last played in 1985, but he remained involved in the sport as coach of the West Indies team during the late 1990s and as an International Cricket Council (ICC) referee in the early 2000s. He was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.
- Lance Gibbs
A cousin of Lloyd, Lance Gibbs played for the West Indies team during the 1960s and 1970s. He was considered one of the best off-spin bowlers in the world at the time. His international playing resume includes 309 wickets in 79 Tests.
Speaking to the rarity of this accolade, he remains the only spin bowler to have exceeded 300 wickets in Test cricket. In fact, only two other Guyanese players—Hooper and Colin Croft—have recorded more than 100 Test wickets.
Gibbs’ bowling ability was further emphasized at the first-class domestic level, where he registered 1,024 wickets in 330 games. Conversely, he was a less-than-stellar batsman who failed to record a half-century in his career. Nonetheless, in recognition for being one of the best bowlers to ever play the game, Gibbs was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009.
- Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Unlike Gibbs, who was never heralded for his ability as a batsman, Shivnarine Chanderpaul is considered one of the best Guyanese batsmen of all-time. He is also one of the best to ever play for the West Indies.
The left-handed batsman captained West Indies in 16 One Day Internationals and 14 Tests and scored 20,000 runs in international play. Impressively, 11,000 of those runs came in Test cricket; he is the eighth-highest scorer all-time in that area. He won the ICC Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy as the top cricket player of the year in 2008.
Chanderpaul scored 17 centuries during his first-class career with Guyana. He also remains the highest run scorer in the country’s history with 5,746 runs for an average of 63.14 per game. The 45-year-old announced his retirement in 2016.
- Ramnaresh Sarwan
A 39-year-old native of Wakenaam Island, Ramnaresh Sarwan is another Guyanese cricket player who served as captain of the West Indies. He debuted for the team in a Test match in 2000 against Pakistan and registered his first century two years later against Bangladesh.
His best score in a Test match came in 2009, when he scored 291 for West Indies in a game against England. This tied him for the all-time single game score for a West Indies player with Sir Vivian Richards. Sarwan officially retired from international cricket in 2016.
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