Skipper of the Guyana Amazon Warriors Cris Green has put the batsmen under the pump as they head into the back end of the Caribbean Premier League.
This is set to be the toughest matches for the Warriors with four battles in five days starting with today’s game against St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
The captain reckoned “Early wickets cost us…we weren’t able to get together as a group,” for the team’s losses. Despite Warriors currently being one the side to score the most runs this season, their highest total was 144 in the opening contest and they have posted three scores below 120. Green is demanding that the batsmen come to the biggest party in sport.
“Batters really need to start standing up now…We’ve got the quality in this line up and guys need to start putting their hands up,” he declared.
The 26-year-old Australian contended that it is not an issue of lack of quality but rather them fulfilling their responsibility and laying the foundation for the team.
The captain argued that when batsmen in the top order have batted through the innings it has allowed teams to post good totals and highlighted when Shimron Hetmyer and Nicholas Pooran scored half centuries.
“We need our top four batters to start batting through the innings, be there until the last sort of 16th over, set that platform for us to come in rather than having six, seven, eight or nine coming in the 12th or 13th over and trying to set up a total for us,” Green stated.
The five-time finalists will need to quickly fix their batting woes as soon as possible with just four points on the board and a negative net run rate.
In the last three matches, Warriors lost their top order inside the Powerplay and were unable to make amends in the last phases of their innings.
The top four slots have contributed 52 percent of the team’s runs. Hetmyer started with back-to-back half centuries but has since scored 0, 4, 5 and 26. Apart from Hetmyer, Pooran and Ross Taylor are the only other batsmen in the side to register a half century and over 100 accumulated runs.
Brandon King has contrasted his dream run last season with a series of woeful scores including two ducks in six innings and a total of 46 runs.
His opening partner in Chandrapaul Hemraj has managed a mere 60 runs from five innings.
Similarly, Sherfane Rutherford, who plays in the Indian Premier League, has struggled, scoring 38 runs in six innings and a strike rate under 100.
Warriors’ bench looks thin in the batting department with mostly bowling all-rounders available. Kevin Sinclair is the only recognized batsman in the side, having played an opening role in club cricket but has been relegated to a lower order batsman in Regional cricket.
On the other hand, Green has commended the bowlers for their exceptional work. He noted, “Another good performance, we are really doing the good things, the simple things with the ball… I think it was a quality effort from the bowlers, a quality effort from the fielders, I can’t fault them we just got to be better with the bat.”
Ashmead Nedd has been sensational so far and has been the most economical bowler in the tournament with an economy rate of 3.91.
Imran Tahir has been the most successful bowler in the unit with 11 wickets while Keemo Paul has seven and Green and Naveen-Ul-Haq have five wickets each.
