Guyana Amazon Warriors have been unceremoniously booted from the Caribbean Premier League and their captain, Chris Green, is not happy with the team’s performance.
The five-time finalists failed to make a sixth appearance on the grand stage of the Biggest party in Sport after St. Lucia Zouks dismissed them for the second lowest total in CPL history, 55 and then romped to their target in just four overs without losing a wicket.
During the post-match conference, Green summarized the performance as “disappointing.”
“It’s a disappointing effort to be knocked out like that but full credit to Darren (Sammy) and his team, they completely outplayed us tonight,” he said.
“You can’t score 55 and expect to defend it,” he added.
Despite their abysmal performance, Green reflected on the entire tournament stating that he was proud to reach this far.
“Nonetheless I am extremely proud of our guys and how they turned it around, had a tough start, everyone I asked of them they gave 100 percent,” he said.
Green indicated that the never-say-die attitude of the team was inspirational while pointing out that throughout their campaign they had fun.
“Even tonight going on the field trying to defend 55 is not easy but we had a lot of fun together as a group,” Green posited.
With respect to the individual performances of his team, Green explained that there is much to be positive about.
“Some guys have stood up this tournament, “he said.
“I am especially excited about a couple of our young players in Ashmead Nedd and Kevin Sinclair, you know forcing their way into our best XI is something I have personally been proud of and there are some guys who had different highlights like [Nicholas] Pooran’s 100 and some guys with the ball,” he declared.
Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer and Imran Tahir have made it to the tournament XI while Keemo Paul has been listed as the 12th man.
Hetmyer ended as the leading run scorer for the Warriors with 267 runs highlighted by three half centuries and a strike rate of 125.94. However, with two on the trot to open the tournament, the 23-year-old left hander had six single-figure scores including a duck in the semi-final after being bowled while leaving alone a delivery.
Pooran’s tournament has also been up and down, leading to a tournament aggregate of 245 runs and a strike rate of 123. Despite scoring the tournament’s lone century and 68 in earlier matches, Pooran has failed to pass 18 in the other nine innings.
Their batting woes were imbedded at the top of the order as they struggled to find a good opening pair throughout the tournament.
Brandon King was a far cry from his last year’s self and only managed 116 runs at an average of 11.60 and a strike rate of 98. While having a top score of 51 not out, King failed to score on four occasions, the most by any batsman in the tournament.
King featured at the top of the order in all of the matches and shared partnerships with Chandrapaul Hemraj, Kevin Sinclair and Anthony Bramble.
Hemraj was the most constant with eight appearances where he scored 140 runs at a strike rate of an even 100. Sinclair had three innings overall and failed to pass five on each occasion while Bramble’s lone appearance in the tournament reaped a 19-ball seven.
Ross Taylor was expected to play the anchoring role but on most occasions he did not come to the party. He ended the tournament with 164 runs from 10 innings with a best of 33 and a substandard strike rate of 87.23.
Contrastingly, their bowlers, particularly the spinners, relished in the conditions. Tahir ended with 15 wickets at an average of 15.93 and economy rate of 5.8.
He was one of four bowlers in the side with economy rates below six. Youngsters, Sinclair (five wickets) and Nedd (three wickets) had economy rates of 4.3 and 4.8 respectively while Green had one of 5.6 to go along with nine wickets.
Afghanistan pacer, Naveen-ul-Haq was the leading seamer with 11 wickets and an economy rate of 6.4 while being supported by Paul and Romario Shepherd with nine and six wickets respectively.
