Permaul’s Superb 500: Spinner celebrates magical milestone for Guyana
Congratulations to Veerasammy Permaul for a massive milestone.👏🏿
— Windies Cricket (@windiescricket) February 5, 2023
5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣+ First Class wickets for Guyana. 🇬🇾 pic.twitter.com/tUAqM2L8Ua
Permaul’s Superb 500: Spinner celebrates magical milestone for Guyana
Veerasammy Permaul, the Guyana Harpy Eagles left-arm spinner is celebrating a monumental feat in regional cricket. On Friday, he reached the milestone of 500 wickets for Guyana in the regional first-class competitions – the first bowler from his country to achieve this.
The magic moment came when he took the wicket of Keon Harding of Barbados Pride on the third day of the West Indies Championship contest at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Permaul dedicated the performance to his parents, who he said sacrificed a lot to help with his development and progress in the game.
A beaming Permaul was understandably elated with his accomplishment and spoke proudly. He started as a 17-year-old against Windward Islands way back in January 2007 at the Tanteen Recreational Ground in the Carib Beer Series. He took four wickets in a marathon 34 overs – early signals of his consistency and accuracy.
“I remember that first match against the Windwards and how excited I was to play for Guyana. It was more than a dream come true, it was everything to me, to represent my country in ‘big man’ cricket,” Permaul said. “To now reach 500 wickets … was not really a goal but I’m happy to reach it. I remember my first wicket, Devon Smith with my second ball of my career and obviously the 500th was Harding so I’m looking to add more to my tally.”
Overall, Permaul is in his 130th first-class match. He has taken 574 wickets and bowled close to 30,000 balls – an amazing work-rate. On Saturday he ended with 2-28 to have six wickets in the match as the Guyanese defeated the Bajans.
“I love four-day cricket it is a tests for all aspects of the game. we always stress in our meetings that the most important part of the game is patience, whether you’re a batsman or a bowler,” Permaul said. “The goal is to see Guyana retain the four-day title. I started when we were being beaten a lot. Then we won five years straight and that was a great feeling.”
One of the great peaks for Permaul was when he bowled in partnership with leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo.
“I always enjoyed bowling with Bishoo and we enjoyed playing together. We started at the Albion playing club cricket together and eventually we played for Guyana together. We grew up together and it was a privilege to play with him. I contained one end and he attacked at the other end, and we formed a fantastic partnership.”