Milton Pydana
Back in 2014 the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) which was founded in September 1939, inducted six cricketers into their Hall of Fame and one of those players, Milton Pydana was mistakenly described as deceased by the BCB.
Pydana, a former Berbice, Guyana and West Indies player who resides in Brooklyn New York in the USA, where he still Coaches as a level 2 Coach, is alive and well and celebrates his 66th birthday today.
“The six cricketers – Ivan Madray, Sew Shivnarine, Milton Pydana, Leonard Baichan, Leslie Amsterdam and Romain Etwaroo were the second set of players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and joined the first set of inductees; John Trim, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Alvin Kallicharran and Roy Fredericks. Milton Pydana (deceased) and Royston Crandon have played One Day Internationals” informed the BCB in a story carried by this newspaper.
Nobody apparently picked up on the mistake until Pydana’s daughter Rochelle Pydana penned a letter to Kaieteur News on January 16 correcting the mistake.
“I just read a sports article from September 2, 2014 and noticed that my father, the legendary Milton Pydana, was noted as deceased. My father is very much alive and well this 16th day of January 2016 and I’m kindly asking that you correct this false statement” said Rochelle.
“I suggest you do a story about him to correct the mistake and provide him with a nice birthday present when he goes on-line today to read this newspaper” Rochelle added.
Born Milton Robert Pydana on the January 27, 1950 in the Village of Smythsfield on the East Bank of Berbice, Pydana, like most Berbicians, developed an early interest in cricket at the Vryman’s Erven Primary school.
He began his First Division career in 1969 for the Mental Hospital in the Davson Cup in Berbice and made his U-19 debut in 1970 when the tournament was played in Trinidad. Pydana joined Berbice Police in 1971 before the talented Berbician moved the City to play in the Case Cup first division competition when the standard of cricket was very high and Police had a strong team.
Pydana was also a competent lower-order batsman and played first-class cricket for Guyana for 17 seasons from 1971 and also successfully captained Berbice at the Inter-County level. He made two tours with the West Indies and made his ODI debut against Pakistan in Karachi in 1980 and his first catch was off of fellow Guyanese Colin Croft when Javed Miandad edged a leg-cutter.
He was the understudy to David Murray in Pakistan and in 1983 he was second string to Jeff Dujon in India. In his second ODI, Pydana hit the winning runs in the only time he batted in his three international matches. In India, he played just once in the ODI team.
At the First-Class level he scored two centuries from 85 matches and took 152 catches while executing 36 stumpings. In 24 Regional One-Day games and had 29 dismissals. After playing his last First-Class match in the 1988 Red Stripe Cup tournament Pydana, who is rated by many who saw him as the most naturally talented of the Keepers produced by Guyana, moved to New York in February 1989.
Two Keepers were arguably close the Pydana in terms of glove work and hand/eye coordination. They are the late Ivor Mendonca who played two Tests in 1962 and 29-year-old Tyrell Tull, who played four T20 games for Guyana as a 16-year old in 2006 in the Stanford T20 before wasting his immense talent.
The veteran glove-man says he is very concerned about the state of cricket in Guyana and is looking for ways to be able to contribute to a resolution.