GROS ISLET, St Lucia, CMC – New Barbados Royals captain Rovman Powell has urged patience with his young side after they suffered a chastening 54-run defeat to St Lucia Kings.
Chasing 202 at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground on Thursday night, Royals produced an inept batting effort to collapse to 147 all out, in their opening fixture of the Caribbean Premier League.
At one stage, they were tottering on 21 for four in the third over but 22-year-old Nyeem Young blasted a top score of 48 off 39 balls after arriving at number eight, to add some respectability to the total.
“We have to keep on improving. If we can improve in the batting, bowling and fielding that would do us well,” said Powell, in his first year as Royals captain after leading Jamaica Tallawahs to last year’s title. “You know it’s a young team and as a young team, you’re going to need just a little bit of time – a little bit of time to get it right. Hopefully the next game can go better.”
Royals had their top order decimated by lively pacer Matthew Forde, the 21-year-old right-armer snatching three of the first four wickets to fall.
Rahkeem Cornwall was run out off the first ball of the chase before Forde bowled both Justin Greaves (0) and Kevin Wickham (10), and then finished off an outstanding spell by having Powell taken in the deep, also without scoring.
Powell said he had warned his side about the critical nature of the opening power-play. “With a 200-run target at the half-way stage I said to them we cannot win the game in the power-play; we only can lose it in the power-play and I think we did exactly that,” said the Jamaican, recently appointed West Indies Twenty20 skipper.
“I think when you look back on it, young Nyeem Young had a good game – that is one of the positives that we can take from it.” Royals’ malaise started from the time they were asked to bowl, conceding 65 runs in the first power-play and then watching as Zimbabwean Seam Williams (47), captain Faf du Plessis (46) and opener Johnson Charles (30) all played key roles with the bat.
“It was a tough one. I think we didn’t stick to our plans as a bowling unit to start off with and as a batting unit, to lose four or five [wickets] in the power-play we were always going to be behind the game.” Royals face Tallawahs in their second game at the same venue tomorrow morning.
