By Akeem Greene
Guyana Amazon Warriors Head Coach, Johan Botha, is hopeful Sunday’s much-needed and dominant victory against St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots will be the catalyst to spur the franchise to a final four spot.
Five-time finalists, Guyana Amazon Warriors, have had a stuttering start to the Hero CPL 2020, and though they would now feel more comfortable of qualifying for the semi-finals, they are still not totally out of the woods.
Their remaining three matches are against defending champions Barbados Tridents, whom they play twice this week, and St. Lucia Zouks, who are in the second spot.
Warriors would need to win a minimum of two of these matches to be within a chance of a top-four finish. Speaking at Monday’s virtual press briefing, Botha indicated they are confident of defeating both sides.
Warriors play Tridents on Tuesday and have won 10 of the 15 match-ups, while against Zouks, they have won nine of 14 matches.
“We are still very confident. Yesterday [Sunday] was crucial, we needed that to be able to stay in contact with the top four,” Botha said.
“(Today) is a big one, Barbados is right there with us in a similar position. We respect them as a team, they are a quality team and have some really good players so the next two games against them is definitely going to be crucial and then the Zouks in the middle. We know we are capable of beating those two teams and hopefully, the guys rest good and we can go three on the bounce.”
The South African indicated it is at this stage of the competition, the business-end, that they need to start peaking. In the past, Warriors would have a superb start, but falter in the knockout rounds.
“We got to win two of the next three, Tridents were in a similar position last year and they navigated through that phase and went on to win the tournament. We are hoping to get a bit of momentum late in the tournament.”
“To be honest we have not played at our best but yesterday (Sunday) was a good start and with three matches in three days we can get some momentum tomorrow (Tuesday) and carry it for the next two days.”
Meanwhile, Tridents’ Head Coach Trevor Penney stated they are looking to win both their matches against the Warriors.
Tridents have lost five of their seven matches this season, which means they will need all six points on offer to stand a chance of a semi-final spot.
Warriors and Tridents will meet for the first time this season, as matches return to the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, and both coaches are hoping for better batting conditions, as opposed to what they were presented with at Queen’s Park Oval.
Match time is 17:30h.
Guyana Amazon Warriors Squad: Chris Green (captain), Imran Tahir, Nicholas Pooran, Brandon King, Ross Taylor, Shimron Hetmyer, Kissoondath Magram, Keemo Paul, Sherfane Rutherford, Romario Shepherd, Naveen-ul-Haq, Chandrapaul Hemraj, Kevin Sinclair, Ashmead Nedd, Odean Smith, Anthony Bramble, Jasdeep Singh.
Barbados Tridents Squad: Jason Holder (captain), Rashid Khan, Corey Anderson, Shamarh Brooks, Mitchell Santner, Johnson Charles, Shai Hope, Hayden Walsh Jr, Ashley Nurse, Jonathan Carter, Raymon Reifer, Kyle Mayers, Joshua Bishop, Nyeem Young, Justin Greaves, Keon Harding, Shayan Jahangir.
