The county of Berbice in Guyana, is known as know as that country’s cricket Mecca for good reason
Over the years, the Ancient County has established itself as the country’s richest source of cricket talent – where some are spotted well in advance and others simply pop up out of nowhere. Shondel Ward belongs to the latter category of players who only needed a window of opportunity to breakthrough and take off to levels reserved for elite stardom.
Ward’s opportunity came in the summer of 2009 when the right-arm fast bowler wrecked Canada on her debut for the United States, bagging five wickets for 20 runs in Toronto that catapulted her reputation instantly.
She went on to line up more wickets in the three-match series that laid the foundation for an upset series triumph for the visiting American team. Ward helped dump Canada out of contention for the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup qualification, establishing herself as a core member of the USA women’s team which will contest for that vital slot in Bangladesh, instead. Like her Berbice compatriots Roy Fredericks and Rohan Kanhai, Ward burst onto the scene with unexpected success.
Rohan Kanhai made his first tour as a wicket-keeper for the West Indies and returned as a specialist batsman. The fact he went on to become one of the world’s best batsmen of his era is well documented. Roy Fredericks needed just one match to launch an outstanding career at the Test level. He scored two centuries against Barbados’s Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith, as a late replacement, and won an instant West Indies place from which he never looked back.
Ward is from New Amsterdam just across the Berbice River from Blairmont from where Fredericks hails, and seems well-set on the road for a fruitful United States cricket career.
She came to the USA without any cricket aspirations after being frustrated by non-selection by the Guyana selectors.
“I went to many trials and although I was better than many others, they got picked and I didn’t,” she said, about her experience a few years back. And it took continuous cajoling by New York coach Linden Fraser to get her back onto the field after she settled in the Big Apple.
Fraser succeeded in getting her into his team that represented Connecticut (North East Region) in first ever USA Women’s Regional championship which the Northeast Region won handily.
Ward is a lady of few words even when it concerns her exploits in Canada. “If I do something and it doesn’t work, I will try something else,” is how she explains the key to her success so far.
In Canada Ward went on to top the wickets tally in that series and picked up a three-scalp game haul in the preceding T20 series against the Canadians.
The right-armer has a high action that generates steep bounce for which she never had formal coaching. On a bouncy pitch at the Broward County Regional Park Stadium in Florida in 2010, her bouncers created havoc and almost sent one player to the hospital, with one that connected to the body instead of bat in an exhibition game.
The natural ability to bowl took shape at her Secondary school in Canje, Berbice, and at 28 years of age, Ward is probably now at the peak age of her game, so the World Cup qualification tournament in Bangladesh could not have come at a better time as her competitive spirit has risen to the fore.
Although she is expecting her first child within a few months Ward, the once reluctant player is confident of getting fully fit for the challenges the USA team will face in Bangladesh in November, 2011.
It is a competition that cannot come faster for another of Berbice’s best, to maintain the Ancient County’s outstanding reputation.