Chattergoon: Our Own Cricket Club Ready For Masters Tournament

By Ravi Madholall in Toronto
Our Own Cricket Club is ready to rumble from Sunday in the opening round of the 2019 Ontario Masters Softball Cricket Clubs (OMSCC) over-40, 20-over competition.

This declaration was made by new skipper Hemnarine Chattergoon recently in an exclusive interview. The former Guyana and West Indies under-19 batsman stated that Our Own will be competitive and consistent when they clash with Pegasus at Dean Park, Scarborough.

Our Own had done tremendously well in the same category winning four successive championships ranging from 2011-2015.

In addition to that Our Own captured the inaugural Toronto Cup trophy in 2015 defeating Guyana Floodlights Softball Cricket Association by 29 runs. The Toronto Cup softball extravaganza was also run under the auspices of OMSCC.

Apart from those historical achievements, it was the past as the elegant right-handed Chattergoon is fresh and fully [geared] up for this year’s edition.

“Well, we have a good team to compete; over-40 whiteball cricket in Toronto has been competitive but I am very confident the guys will do well,” Chattergoon mentioned.

Most of Our Own’s successes were certainly attributed to several famous softball players while many would have also represented Guyana at various levels and then Canada internationally.

Ex-Canada captain Sunil Dhaniram has been a regular member for Our Own with four more Canadian batsmen Shiv Seeram, Desmond Chumney, Aftab Shamsudeen and Abdool Samad. Veteran softball all-rounder Bobby Parasnauth will also be back in action for Our Own and he would have also done exceptionally well for the team, both as a player and leader. Other senior campaigners in the lineup are: Jaimini Singh, Richard Driffield, Muniram Karran and Anil Mahadeo just to mention a few.

“I think there are some good and experienced softball players and that should give us great confidence; these are senior members and they would definitely like to be on the winning side but we have to be very focused and committed for the next several months,” Chattergoon, who featured for Canada at the ICC level from 2007-2010, revealed.

In the second Toronto Cup which was held in 2017, Our Own did not take part but according to the Berbician Chattergoon, they are likely to participate in the third tournament which will be run from August 31 to September 2. New York Hustlers are the defending champions in the over-40 category. Meanwhile, Chattergoon, the elder brother of former West Indies opening batsman Sewnarine Chattergoon, said there should not be any major challenges in this year’s Masters tournament but will always be caution against the competing teams. Warriors Cricket side is the reigning champions having beaten Dant in 2018 by five wickets. Our Own reached the semi-final stage last year under the captaincy of Parasnauth in which Chattergoon served as his deputy.