Barbados Pride will be putting proper plans in place to get premium performances in today’s day-night cricket final of the West Indies Super50 Festival against red-hot Windward Islands Volcanoes.
Without revealing the precise plans, captain Kraigg Brathwaite, coach Emmerson Trotman and manager Wendell Coppin said the strategies should lead to a successful defence of the title.
The final between the two top Group A teams bowls off at 2 p.m. at the Coolidge Cricket Ground, formerly known as the Stanford Ground.
“The Windwards beat us in the return group match after we won in the first round, but they play hot and cold so you never know, but it will be good final,” Trotman told the Saturday Sun.
“But as long as we plan well and execute well, I don’t see any reason why we can’t be champions again,” he added.
Trotman reckons middle-order batsman Roston Chase will have a big role to play, along with other experienced players such as Brathwaite and the inconsistent Jonathan Carter.
“We need good batting performances from the senior players, which I believe the boys will do, and that will give us the title,” asserted Trotman.
Chase has been far and away the tournament’s leading run-scorer with 514 runs at an average of 64.25 and a strike rate of 93.45.
Like Trotman, Brathwaite believes sticking to the game plan is necessary.
“I think that once we stick to our specific plans that we set out to do, we will come out on top.
“When we are batting, building partnerships and when we are fielding, bowling to the specific fields and encouraging each other,” Brathwaite noted.
After winning handsomely by 100 runs when the teams met at full strength in a first-round match at Kensington Oval, the Volcanoes rebounded to beat Barbados Pride by 22 runs at the same venue in the return leg.
Coppin said concentration will be critical against the Volcanoes, who have reeled off six straight victories after starting with three losses.
“We have to come out and play good cricket and what we will do is concentrate on the things that we need to do well . . . and how can we on the night, pull out our A game and ensure that we are victorious and that’s our main concern,” he said.
Whereas Barbados Pride have lost as many as 11 players through West Indies’ duties and injury, the Volcanoes only major loss has been wicketkeeper/batsman Andre Fletcher, who became unavailable after the Group matches.
In Fletcher’s absence, Tyrone Theophile, who had managed a mere 23 runs in five innings, hit a maiden List A hundred in their semi-final victory over Guyana Jaguars.
Brathwaite also ended a lean Group stage with an unbeaten century in the semi-final against Kent and would be seeking to replicate Shai Hope’s feat last year when he carved out centuries in both the semi-final and final.
The Pride’s bowling will be in the hands of rookie fast bowlers Dominic Drakes and Chemar Holder, whose five wickets each are the most by a bowler in the current side.
They are backed up by all-rounder Shamar Springer and Antiguan leg-spinner Haydn Walsh, with Brathwaite and Chase providing off-spin.
Former captains Kevin Stoute and Kenroy Williams did not bat or bowl in the semi-final and it will be left to be seen if their all-round skills will be fully utilised.
Stoute has a West Indies’ List A bowling record of 8-52 with his skiddy seamers against English county, Lancashire while Williams is a generally tidy off-spinner, whose economy rate of 3.92, is the best among the Barbados Pride bowlers. Both are capable middle order batsmen.
The Pride’s bowling plans could result in Keon Harding, who dismissed Devon Smith cheaply in both innings during the four-day tournament, making the starting line-up, or using one of the off-spinners upfront to exploit Smith’s weakness against this type of bowling. (EZS)