Head coach of the Guyana Amazon Warriors, Johan Botha trusts his side is “ready as can be,” as they open their 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) campaign today against Trinbago Knight Riders at the Brian Lara Stadium from 10.00 hours.
Botha, in an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport, revealed that the circumstances were not ideal but with what was presented, the side had utilized it effectively.
“I think we are ready as can be, we’ve got quite a variety of guys in our team,” Botha indicated.
The head coach explained that it is hard to gauge what form the players are in since they had no real cricket of late and the sessions have been few and far between.
“It’s hard to say with no real cricket coming in, we are sort of hoping guys are ready…we only had three nets…then the others aren’t really cricket specific… some guys haven’t played since February, some guys had a hit last month, some have played 10 days ago so I don’t know, it’s a difficult one it’s hard to say, we have prepared as well as we could have so far with the conditions,” Botha related.
The former South African all-rounder highlight the fact that the weather did have a say.
“Obviously it’s the rainy season at the moment so some practices have been cut short, because we have all six teams at one location we can’t all have nets at the same time so it’s sort of on a three-day rotation at the moment, we get the tennis court for one day, gym, swimming pool and the nets so I think the guys have adopted pretty well, they have done as well as they could have.
However, the coach tipped their campaign opening-opposition as a better prepared side over the other five franchises since they were able to get more training in.
He said, “Every team is in the same situation, obviously maybe Trinidad has got a bit of an advantage with guys being able to train up to a few days ago on their own surfaces but other than that every team is basically in the same boat.”
While Botha was not too worried about the outcome of the first few matches, he welcomed a good start but contended that it was towards the back end of the tournament that would be crucial.
“There is no use peaking now in the first week, it would be nice to get a nice start and settle everyone down but if we can navigate through these first five games without injury, you know making sure we make a couple of rotational changes because we are playing so much on top of each other and everyone finds their role, their rhythm so by the time we get to September everyone is 100 percent and contest for the final spots,” he said.
Botha was pleased that the team was able to secure 13 players for their impressive season last year where they won 11 matches on the trot before losing in the final.
However, with the new season came some changes that are welcomed by the side. Botha acknowledged it was a big loss to lose their captain, Shoaib Malik who is on international duty but has been replaced by Chris Green who has led the side in the past.
As a player, Botha was confident in the ability of Ross Taylor to mirror the role Malik played previously while bringing his experience to the side.
According to Botha, the team is basically settled as was the case last season but will see more changes due to the condensed fixtures.
“Even though we had such a good run, we still kept rotating among our quick bowlers and certainly we will have to do that again this year.The guys aren’t machines. They haven’t played in four months so we can’t expect them to turn up 10 games in a row in 15 days, I think that is the challenge for us, we’ve got 10 games in 15 days, we are going to have to rotate and navigate through certain situations,” Botha suggested.
“I think the simplest you can have it is to try and pick our first XI, try and pick our best XI and then we go to the next evening see if everyone is fit, go through how everyone is going, how are the performances on the field and just as a management and captain make our call on who is best suited for the next game. I think that’s as simple as we can keep it, we can’t get too far ahead.”
The head coach related that Brandon King, the surprise of last year and will open with Chandrapaul Hemraj while Shimron Hetmyer is set to bat at number three. With Taylor at number four, the likes of Nicholas Pooran, Sherfane Rutherford and Keemo Paul will slot in from five to seven.
Additionally, with Green in the side, he will likely take up a spot in the lower order as well as Imran Tahir and Naveen Ul-Haq to round out the four overseas players.
Due to CPL rules, Ashmead Nedd or Kevin Sinclair will need to play at least five games collectively and would be interesting to see if they feature in the starting XI or whether the Warriors go for a pacer in Romario Shepherd or Odean Smith. Among the others in the side are Anthony Bramble, Jasdeep Singh and Mangram Kissoondath.
