Sarwan gung-ho about Windies' chances

Many people have been asking me if I am uncertain about not being fit to play in the opening game of the World Cup on March 13th against Pakistan in Jamaica.

I am not at all uncertain, I am confident that I will be ready. My thumb is much better than before. Although I have the chipped bone it has not stopped me from doing other fitness work such as running.

I can flex my thumb and I will commence therapy very soon. In fact this morning (Wednesday) I tried to grip and lift my bat and I felt pretty comfortable.

While I am doing as much as I can to stay fit I know that in the coming weeks I will have to work doubly hard to ensure that I am in the shape I would like to be in for the World Cup. I am really looking forward to the next few weeks.

Overall as a team I think we stand a very good chance. However we cannot take home advantage casually because quite a few of the pitches we will be playing on will be new ones so we will start on even ground in that regard. Nevertheless, with home crowd support we are known to perform much better.

Playing in Jamaica in Group D is a good opportunity to top the group. While we cannot take any team for granted, Pakistan is the other major team in our group and they did beat us 4-1 in Pakistan late last year. As I mentioned we do play better at home though and we need to win the group to gain momentum going into the Super Eight stage.

I have to also mention that it is quite interesting to see the reigning world champions Australia losing quite a few games on the trot in recent times. That will surely give the other teams added confidence and motivation going into the World Cup. New Zealand and England have beaten them most recently and we did it on a couple of occasions last year. However we have to remember that they are missing a number of their key players – Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke, Brett Lee. Those players will make a big difference when they return.

Returning to Guyana's cricket I have to say I was disappointed in the way we played this year in the regional tournaments. Obviously we did not live up to expectations after winning the Twenty20 tournament. Sadly I have to say that I do not think that 'cricket' is the priority in Guyana, unfortunately it seems as though people have other things as their priority. I think the administrators of Guyana's cricket need to get things right and put 'cricket' back as the priority.

After winning the Twenty20 tournament, to see our outfits for the competition was horrendous. We were not uniform as a team. The team was not given caps until very late in the tournament and only after they were requested by the team.

Those are the little things which demonstrate how disorganised we are. After playing for Guyana for so many years it is the worst I saw us play as a team but that doesn't come because the players lacked commitment. It comes from them being insecure in the team and feeling too much pressure and being uncomfortable.

It was a great group of guys and I enjoyed their company in the few games I played but I would like them to get help from the administrators of Guyana's cricket. One of the priorities would be for there to be more preparatory camps leading into regional tournaments.

After winning the Twenty20 tournament one would have thought that we would have been the best equipped and prepared team in the Caribbean but unfortunately it was not so.