By Ravendra Madholall in Toronto
Twenty-one-year-old Harrienarine Chattergoon has enjoyed his first stint in Canada playing in both the Toronto and District Cricket Association and Scarborough Cricket Association (SCA) leagues that concluded recently.
Harrienarine Chattergoon (right) with brother Hemnarine Chattergoon.
The former Guyana under-19 batsman, the youngest brother of the Chattergoon siblings, represented Vikings Cricket Club at the Toronto Elite competition while he played for the Hawaiian Arctic Sports Club in the Scarborough division.
His elder brother Hemnarine Chattergoon featured in Canada senior team last year and also donned the Guyana’s and West Indies’ under-19 colors.
Sewnarine Chattergoon, a former West Indies test and one-day international opener and Ramnarine Chattergoon, who represented Guyana under-19 and Combined Colleges and Campuses in the West Indies Cricket Board tournament are the other brothers.
Harrienarine arrived in Canada earlier this year and immediately began his club cricket career with modest success. He made an impression with the bat while his bowling (off-break) also came into reckoning.
His desire now is to represent Canada at the senior level and his hopes are enthusiastically high that he will make it soon rather than later once he performs to the best of his ability.
Only recently he was part of the Hawaiian Arctic Sports Club team that crowned champions for the fourth consecutive year in the limited-over competition, which was also run under the auspices of the SCA.
His team trounced Bawan XI by ten wickets to lift the title again. A number of former Guyanese cricketers also played for Hawaiian in this year’s edition and some of the top names are: Royston Crandon, Trevon Garraway, Azib Ally Haniff and Hemnarine Chattergoon.
Harrienarine’s contributions were useful but quite disappointed with himself after his primary objective was to score more heavily and consistently.
However, he enjoyed the game to a great degree and rated the steady competitiveness and felt the experience initially has also been magnificent.
“I came here to play cricket and I will try my utmost to do well; I think the cricket [is] good here and I know runs are important if I am going to make it on the international scene,” Harrienarine declared.
His introduction to the new environment had also given the right-hander the impetus to aim for achievable things as he wants to play professionally on a regular basis. According to the former Albion Cricket Club first-division player, his bigger brother has been very influential so far in his decent cricketing career in Canada and even since he was representing his native country.
“I must thank big brother (Hemnarine) for his continued encouragement to play the game hard; he has a great work ethic; he strongly believes in fitness and discipline so he is indeed a good role model for me as young, ambitious cricketer,” Harrienarine related.
He also took the opportunity to say that he had appreciated his cricket back home too since he was a regular member of the Berbice team at all levels and at the annual Cricket Board annual inter-county annual competitions.
He skippered Berbice in the under-15, 17 and 19 competitions and was a successful leader as they emerged with a number of trophies both collectively and individually.
“I definitely had a good time in Guyana representing my club, county and country. I think I could have done more but it was always challenging at the various levels, but I am confident that I could contribute to Canada’s cricket from now on,” Harrienarine mentioned.