Campbell: ‘Up and Down’ Scorpions season

Jamaica Scorpions captain John Campbell says the 2020 West Indies Championship has been a season of ups and downs following the eighth round of the tournament, which culminated over the weekend.

With the final two rounds postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Jamaicans have found themselves tied for third place in the competition with the Guyana Jaguars.

This position is a much-improved one from last year’s competition, where the Scorpions finished in fifth place and captain Campbell said it was a season with more good than bad.

“It’s been a season of ups and downs. We started out not doing so well with two draws and a loss and was in the last place but we fought back in the second half of the tournament and played some good cricket,” said Campbell.

MORE CONFIDENT

Campbell said the players got more and more confident as the tournament went on and credit must be given to the young unit, which was guided by a new coach in Andre Coley and a new captain.

“We got more confident as we went on, first innings was a major problem for us but we turned that around on several occasions and started to put runs on the board and I must give credit to the young bowlers like Patrick (Harty) and Marquino (Mindley) who started off slow but in the end, Mindley and Harty finished with the first and second most wickets for us in the tournament,” added Campbell.

The left-handed Campbell, who is currently the first-choice opener for the West Indies in Test cricket said he was also pleased with his output with the bat as well as his captaincy.

“Although I didn’t score the number of runs that I would have liked, to fall short of 500 runs by just 10 is not bad. I will take three scores over 50 with two centuries any day. In terms if my captaincy, I think I did a decent job and I would say it was very smooth as most of the guys supported me and the decisions I made, sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t, but overall we did well in the end,” he shared.

Campbell added that next season should see the team performing even better as the players continue to understand their roles more and more.

“Next season we should get better as we started to identify when we were falling down and that each individual has a role to play when things like these happen.”

– L.A.