After several postponements, The Bahamas’ senior national men’s cricket team will head to Antigua to play in the ICC Men’s TwentyTwenty (T20) Americas World Cup Qualifiers, set to get underway November 7 and wrap up on November 14 at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium and Coolidge Cricket Ground. The team has been in the nets and the field for the past few months fine tuning for the tournament.
Representing The Bahamas are Greg Taylor II (captain and wicket-keeper), Marc Taylor, Jagnauth Jagroo, Antonio Harris, Marlon Graham, Roderick Mitchell, Jonathan Barry, Gregory Irvin, Sandeep Goud, Everette Haven, Kevorn Hinds, Bermishwar Jagroo, Orlando Stuart and Renford Davson.
The head coach is Andy Moles.
The team leaves tomorrow for Antigua. The tournament was originally set for August 2020, but it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moles, who has been at the helm from September of this year, said that he has seen a lot of improvement from the team.
“The team has progressed,” Moles said. “There’s certainly the fitness levels have improved dramatically, which I’m very pleased because we’ve found out we may have to play on some days two games in the same day, so it’s going to be very intense when we get there. The fitness is going to be key.
“I’m sure that the teams that do well in this competition will be the teams that got all 14 people to select from every day. Obviously, the
intensity of this competition is going to test the fitness of a lot of the teams, so that in itself has been really good to see.”
President of the Bahamas Cricket Association and team manager, Greg Taylor I, has seen the team practice and echoed Moles’ sentiments about the team.
“They’ve grown by leaps and bounds. They don’t seem to be the old players or same old players or players of old, however you want to put it. Having brought in a professional coach here and he doesn’t tolerate slackness and he has everybody on their toes. He let them know what the program would be, what he wants, what he expect, and the guys have stepped up to it. They got involved and adapted to his practices,” Taylor I said.
Moles said the bowlers need a little more work and by time as the first march, they should be good.
“Skill-wise, we’ve worked well. There’s time to get that right, but if we can get them right, I’m confident that we can give a good account of ourselves and we can go over there and represent The Bahamas well,” Moles said.
“The batsmen have given a good account of themselves. It’s a small ground and we’ve got players that can clear the boundary and then that’s very encouraging.”
The Bahamas has the lowest rank among the seven teams that are in the competition. Unfortunately, for The Bahamas, the country has not played in an ICC tournament in almost 12 years, and as a result, has dropped in the rankings. The other teams in the tournament are the United States of America (USA), Canada, Argentina, Belize, Bermuda, and Panama.
It is a tough road ahead for The Bahamas, especially against powerhouses USA and Canada. Moles knows he has players on his team that can compete at a high level.
“I’ve not seen them, so they don’t know us and we don’t know them. Obviously, they’re ranked higher and they’ve played a lot more cricket than everybody else. Looking at this World Cup that’s going on at the moment in the Middle East, it takes teams one or two players to have a good day and they can win a game of cricket. We’ve got players on our team that if they have good days, we can beat anybody.”
The captain, Taylor II, who has been playing cricket for years, said that he has seen improvements from the team. Personally, he said he was putting in extra work and is seeing the benefits.
“As the captain, I have to manage the game and ensure that I bowl the bowlers at the right time, put the right batters at the right places and execute the game plan. We just have to stick to the basics like coach said. We did the preparation and we are well-prepared. We just need to execute now, do what it is that we’ve been working on over the past few months.”
The T20 format of cricket has shown that opening batsmen makes a difference and one of the projected opening batsmen is Marc Taylor. Taylor was in the draft for the Caribbean Premier League T20 league last year but did not get drafted. In a tournament like this, teams from T20 leagues will pay keen attention to players they can get on their team. Taylor just wants to go out and set the tone, so his team can win.
“Well, during the practice and the practice games, I think this is probably the best batting shape I’ve been in for quite some time. I know that the guys are depending on me to put up a good score. I could actually help them in winning the game easily if I actually perform well,” Taylor said.
“Over the past four weeks, I’ve been going hard at it. I had a lot of batting sessions using the bowling machine cranking it up to high speeds, so I get adjusted to the bowling when I reach over.”
He is hoping to be one of the top scorers in the tournament.
For Barry, who is an all-rounder that bats in the middle order and bowls medium pace, he just wants the team to do well.
“I want us to go as far as we can in this cricket tournament and we want to show other teams that we are back and we’re going to do a job and win,” Barry said.
There are two spots up for grabs. Both teams will head to one of two global qualifiers set for early 2022.
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source https://thenassauguardian.com/cricket-team-ready-for-icc-americas/
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