Confident hosts of the Cricket West Indies T20 Blaze tournament Guyana, will battle a deflated Windward Islands side in the fourth round at the National Stadium, Providence from 19.00hrs today.
The two sides have experienced contrasting outcomes in the three matches they played with Guyana going down to Trinidad and Tobago while beating Leeward Islands and Jamaica whereas the Windwards are yet to mark a win.
Guyana’s top order have amended some of its shortcomings from the Super50 competition and experimented with their batting order.
Tremayne Smartt has been promoted to the opening role where she has scored 21, 22 and 44 at a strike rate of just over 103 but has solidified the top order as she featured in a half century stand with Sheneta Grimmond who has gotten starts of 13, 21 and 25 but is yet to convert those starts into big scores.
Skipper Shemaine Campbelle continues to be the backbone of the team’s batting and has produced 119 runs from her three innings including an unbeaten half century with a strike rate of 121.
Vice-captain, Akaze Thompson, Shabika Gajnabi, Cherry Ann Fraser and Melanie Henry will all want to get among the runs and take some of the strain off of the top order. The capable batters have shown glimpses of their potential to strike the ball cleanly and capitalize in the last few overs but have not produced the goods expected of them.
In the bowling department, left-arm seamer, Erva Giddings has been the topic of discussion in every opposition’s dressing room as they are yet to find a way to deal with her swing.
Giddings, 33, represented West Indies in two One Day Internationals back in 2016 and has placed her name at the top of the tree for re-selection into the senior regional side with six wickets, all of which have been clean bowled at an economy rate of five. Akaze Thompson has provided support with four wickets at an economy rate of seven with her medium pace.
The off-spinning duo of Grimmond and Plaffiana Millington has controlled the middle period with five and four wickets and economy rates of 4.9 and 5.6 respectively.
Guyana can be a handful to deal with considering their variety of bowling options with Fraser, Gajnabi and Smartt capable seamers.
Mandy Mangru with her off-spin has taken two wickets and features an economy rate of 6.3 while left arm spinner, Kaysia Schultz who has sent down only 10 deliveries in the T20 format, has figures of 1-14.
Campbelle said the girls are in a positive frame of mind and that the confidence and belief is there.
She said that she believes the side has improved but that more consistency was needed.
She also pointed out that winning two games does boost the confidence and opined that the tournament is pretty much open but assured that the local girls will be giving their all on the field.
“While some of the ladies never played under lights, it will be a bit of a challenge for them but the experienced set will need to assist. But I think catches under the lights are going to be a challenge and will be crucial to the game so we just need to work hard on that,” Campbelle said.
Meanwhile, Windwards have suffered tremendously in all departments but showed their grit to bat through their full quotas.
Against Trinidad in a rain-hit contest, their top order facilitated a decent start but their fielding let them down in the contest that went down to the wire.
Juliana Nero remains the linchpin of the top order with scores of 60, 19 not out and 26 not out, scoring at a pedestrian pace of 109.
Skipper Afy Fletcher has done the majority of the work with both bat and ball, scoring 72 runs at a rate of 123 and bowling tight spells.
With the ball, Windwards have only managed eight wickets after winning two tosses and batting first on both occasions.
Their fielding has let them down with poor efforts to cut off boundaries and a number of dropped catches where batters went on to make match changing scores
