The Jamaica Tallawahs are on the hunt for their third Caribbean Premier League title and head coach, Floyd Reifer, has mapped out a path to the title centered on consistency and a collective team effort.
The former West Indies interim head coach updated the media via virtual press conference Monday on his perspective ahead of the tournament which bowls off tomorrow.
According to Reifer, “There are always X Factors in the team but what we have been focusing on is playing a solid team game, playing as a unit we think, wins more games than depending on one person for that match winning performance all the time,” he said.
“You will get a match winning performance but we are focusing more on team performances,” he added.
Reifer name dropped former captain, Andre Russell as one of the players who can singlehandedly win games for the Tallawahs and has a proven track record of being a world beater.
But, he noted, “There are always times players will come out with exceptional performances and we’ve got players capable of doing that but we will be focusing on team efforts to win games consistently.”
The former West Indies captain indicated, “I think we have a very good team. We have very experienced guys who played around the circuit and it is a just a matter of us gelling together and getting it right off the field and right on the field as well.”
Reifer said that some 96 percent of the players have already reached St. Kitts where the tournament is being played this year with only Qais Ahmad, who is set to arrive from England and Shamarh Brooks who is with the West Indies Test side in Jamaica the only two left to join the squad.
The head coach added that the core squad remains the same from the previous season with the likes of Rovman Powell, who will be leading the side, Chadwick Walton, Carlos Brathwaite and Fidel Edwards all in the mix, but it is the young talents that have got him buzzing.
“We still got the core of the team. Yes, we have new faces, it’s always good to expose new talent to the CPL so I’m looking forward to seeing those guys play,” he said.
According to the West Indies under-19 head coach, “We have young Haider Ali as well. He is a very good batter, stats are very good. I think watching him from under-19 cricket….young [Migael] Pretorius, he is kind of an unknown but he is a very talented cricketer…”
Full squad: Rovman Powell (C), Ryan Persaud, Haider Ali, Jason Mohammed, Qais Ahmad, Carlos Brathwaite, Chadwick Walton, Abhijai Mansingh. Joshua James, Fidel Edwards, Veerasammy Permaul, Andre Russell, Migael Pretorius, Kennar Lewis, Kirk McKenzie
