Having secured their spot in the semi-final of the Caribbean Premier League, Guyana Amazon Warriors’ captain, Chris Green is cognizant that the job isn’t over as yet.
“I am really proud of our guys but the work is not done. We can enjoy our day off but our eyes are set on Tuesday,” Green stated after their final group match against Barbados Tridents on Thursday.
The Guyana Amazon Warriors avenged their last year’s final defeat to the Tridents and had the added satisfaction of booting the defending champions from the tournament.
“It’s a nice way to finish our round games, we obviously had the tough task of playing three days straight and to walk away with three victories in three games, we repeated our great bowling performances and then guys were standing up with the bat as we would have talked about,” said Green.
Asked bluntly about finishing in a position to avoid playing Trinbago Knight Riders, who has so far played undefeated this season, Green said that it does not matter who they play.
“We’ve got to be ready for that challenge on Tuesday regardless of who is on the opposite side…avoiding teams is not what we are after, I think we are here to just play the cards in front of us, who we play is completely out of our control now and all we have to do now is control what we can control and that is we’ve done over the last three days,” he said.
Green said he was glad that the team was gaining momentum at the right time.
“We’ve controlled our performances. We’ve kept the focus within our group and I think that has been really successful for us and a key part to our success as well getting that momentum to the back end.”
Green was asked to share his view on the fact that Warriors had lost a few wickets while chasing relatively small totals. However, the captain explained that the batsmen know what their mistakes are and will be in a better space since they’ve owned up to their mistakes.
Shimron Hetmyer has been the leading light with the bat for the Warriors, scoring 267 runs and is currently the leading run getter in the tournament. Hetmyer strikes at 126 and has so far stroked three half centuries in 10 innings.
The 23-year-old has been well supported by Nicholas Pooran who smashed the lone century of the season and has amassed 234 runs at a strike rate of 127.17.
Meanwhile, Warriors’ leg spinner, Imran Tahir leads the bowling charts with 15 wickets under his belt averaging just 14.33. Seamer, Naveen Ul-Haq has also been consistent with 11 wickets at an average of 17.63.
Along with Warriors and Knight Riders, St. Lucia Zouks and Jamaica Tallawahs have qualified for the semi-finals.
