After surging to four consecutive wins this season in the HERO Caribbean Premier League, the Guyana Amazon Warriors will want to extend that dominance to five when they take on Jamaica Tallawahs in their own backyard from 20.00 hours tonight.
The Sabina Park affair will mark the 17th time these two sides would have clashed and Warriors hold a small advantage, winning nine times. At the venue, Warriors have won three of the five matches between the two teams but with both teams on a winning course, they are both confident.
However in the past, Tallawahs, who have just one win from five matches this season have shown their pedigree to come through in important matches as they defeated the Warriors in the 2013 and 2016 finals.
Notwithstanding the absence of Andre Russell, heading into the contest both teams will be brimming with confidence, particularly Tallawahs who secured their first win in their most recent match.
It will be interesting to see who leads the side tonight with Gayle, Rovman Powell and Chadwick Walton assuming that responsibility this season.
Walton, a former Warrior, said that the Tallawahs will not change the way they approach cricket but was critical about the team’s execution as they aim to qualify for the playoffs.
When asked at the pre-match conference about the concerns with catches going down under the lights, Walton defended his men by stating, “We had a few chances going down and I don’t think it is a result of the players’ capabilities.”
Despite dwelling at the bottom-of-the-table, their batsmen have three of the top five run-scorers this season. Gayle is the only batsman so far to smash a century and leads the chart with 205 runs while Walton (166 runs) and Glen Phillips (162 runs) are not too far behind.
Contrastingly, it is their bowling that let them down. Trinbago Knight Riders scored 267-2 against them, the largest total in franchise cricket while St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots completed the second highest successful chase, reaching 242-6 in 18.5 overs.
Their seamers have not been effective and quite expensive. Jerome Taylor is yet to pick up a wicket in his 14 overs at an economy rate of 12.29. Oshane Thomas has been costly with an economy rate of 11.31 but has taken the most wickets for his side with seven.
Powell, Steven Jacobs, Russell and Derval Green all have economy rates of more than 11.
Former Warriors captain and now Tallawahs’ Assistant Coach, Ramnaresh Sarwan, admitted at the pre-match conference that the bowling has been an issue and with Russell still going through his concussion tests as well as Shamar Springer going through testing, the final XI isn’t decided.
However, Sarwan said that with the inclusion of two overseas bowlers in Jade Dernbach and Zahir Khan, the team is hopeful that they can boost that department.
Unlike the Tallawahs, Guyana Amazon Warriors’ Ben Laughlin and Odean Smith, who bowled one over, are the only bowlers with economy rates higher than nine runs per over. Each bowler has contributed in at least one match with Romario Shepherd leading the way with seven wickets.
Leg-spinners, Imran Tahir and Qais Ahmad have already made their impact in the one match they have each played, taking five wickets collectively and will no doubt provide support to Chris Green, Shoaib Malik, Keemo Paul and Chandrapaul Hemraj.
Head Coach of the Warriors, Johan Botha, pointed out that there was no hurt in bringing in two overseas spinners but stated that in Jamaica they will have to assess the conditions first before deciding on which attack to use.
Hemraj, though being used as an opening bowler on a few occasions, has consistently given Warriors good starts along with Brandon King. The pair, along with Shimron Hetmyer are the three leading scorers for the four-time runners-up.
With the top three pulling their team into decent positions and the anchor role by Malik, their finishers have cashed in with Nicholas Pooran and Sherfane Rutherford striking at 164 and 200 respectively.
Botha during the pre-match conference explained: “We respect Jamaica as a team, we know they are a really good team and for us we need to turn up again…our aim is to be a consistent team and we have to be really good again tomorrow night [tonight] if we want to compete with this Jamaica team.”
