Successful three-day captain, Kevlon Anderson is banking on better batting performances in the upcoming Hand-In-Hand Inter-County Under-19 50-overs tournament come tomorrow from Berbice.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport after the Ancient County retained the title in the longer format, the West Indies Under-19 prospect said that he was happy for his team which completed victory after losing on first innings and despite the threat of rain.
He was, however, disappointed with the batting displayed.
“We just had to hold our nerve in the game and back our bowling that was doing well but we had a poor performance with the bat in the first innings and all of the three-day games,” he said.
In the final round Berbice were shot out for 54 in response to Demerara’s first innings of 60.
“The team went blank just thinking of how poor the batting was but we had to get our act together and come again hard.”
Alex Algoo was the main batsman for Berbice with 270 runs at an average of 45 including the highest score in the season of 175. His opening partner, Junior Sinclair averaged 39 with 195 runs and together the two reflected more than half of the team’s runs.
The skipper noted that he is aware a lot is on his shoulders as one of the leading batsmen in the side.
He scored just 93 runs in his six innings that featured a top score of 50. Nevertheless, he related that it was hard on him to travel between camps and adjust but pledged to put on a better show in the limited overs competition.
“I need to get accustomed to the conditions quickly after the West Indies camp we were doing a lot of back-foot shots with the machines and the conditions over there was faster and to adopt was hard for the first few games because we came from Antigua into Berbice camp without rest so with this few days before the one day I will be better,” he said.
On the bright side of things, Anderson was ecstatic of playing their first match of the 50-overs tournament in Berbice at the Albion Community Centre, reasoning that “It is a big plus for us to open the tournament with a match in Berbice, it will be the first time I am playing an Inter-County match in my hometown, it is nice to play in front of your family, home crowd and everyone that has supported you throughout.”
He opined that Berbice had shared a few issues among its players in the first few games but now that it is sorted, the players are getting along better which will see an improvement when they take to the field in the upcoming matches.
