Tallawahs look to rebound

The Caribbean Premier League is already shaping up to be a humdinger of a tournament after just two rounds of games, with all the teams, except the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, already securing wins with eight rounds of matches to be played.

At 1:15 p.m. Jamaica time today, the fourth-place Jamaica Tallawahs, on two points with a win and a loss under their belts, will entertain the second-place Guyana Amazon Warriors, also on two points. The latter, who have a similar record, have a better 0.616 net run rate compared to the Tallawahs’ negative 0.106.

It has been a tale of two games for the Tallawahs, who put in a decent winning performance with the bat in their opening fixture against the St Lucia Zouks but then struggled miserably against the Trinbago Knight Riders in a losing cause on Thursday.

TOO EARLY TO PANIC

New head coach Floyd Reifer told The Gleaner that it is way too early to push the panic button after just two games. However, he is keen on giving his players more time to get things together as the tournament progresses.

“In tournaments like these, you will win and you will lose games. Most of these guys have not played any form of cricket in a while. However, we had some discussions as to how we want to go forward. We look at the boxes that we ticked and see where we can improve and as the tournament goes on, we will be improving in those areas,” said Reifer.

Once again the batting has been placed under the microscope with the top order, which includes seasoned campaigner Chadwick Walton, failing to spark as they did all of last season. There, however, has been the exception of opening wicketkeeper-batsman Glen Phillips, who has been leading the run-scoring charge once again with 102 runs in two innings with a top score of 58.

Reifer says there won’t be wholesale changes and he will be backing Walton to come good, as he believes he has the pedigree to deliver when the time comes.

“If you look at the stats, Chadwick (Walton) is one of the top five batters in CPL in terms of runs, you don’t just discard a guy like that after having two low scores and myself and the team have full confidence in him to come good,” added Reifer.

The former West Indies head coach says his team will be playing ‘fearless’ cricket against the Amazon Warriors as they look to get back to winning ways.

“We are going to look to be positive and play the brand of cricket that I know we can play. It’s just a matter of executing our plans and being a bit sharper in the field. I only play cricket to win and that is what we will aim for.”

In today’s opening game, the pointless St Kitts and Nevis Patriots square off with third-place St Lucia Zouks at 9 a.m.