West Indies Academy aiming for more success against Team Weekes

The West Indies Academy will have their eyes fixed on a second win in their long-format play when they face Team Weekes in Match Two of the Headley Weekes Tri-Series.

The two teams will be involved in the second contest of the Four-Day First-Class tournament at Coolidge Cricket Ground, starting on Wednesday. First ball daily is 10:00h (09:00h Jamaica Time).

The Tri-Series, which also features Team Headley, comprises three matches and will run until May 6. West Indies Academy won last week’s opening match by seven wickets with stellar performances by fast bowler Johann Layne, who had a five-wicket haul on First-Class debut and a match-winning century by Kevlon Anderson.

Alick Athanaze, captain of Team Weekes and Andre Coley, Head Coach of the West Indies Academy, spoke to CWI Media during training sessions at CCG in the preview to the match.

Coley said: “Having gotten early wickets in the first innings [against Team Headley], we were able to follow that up in the second innings and restrict them to an even lower total, and on the back of that win the game. Some of those things are what we want to transfer into game two. If you think about winning a series, you have to be able to repeat performances.”

He added: “Yes, it’s a slightly different team in this game coming up but the disciplines remain the same and if we are able at the end of both matches to say – based on the plans that we had – we were able to tick them, because of the processes we went through and the discipline that we showed, then they would take a lot out of it, other than the win.”

Athanaze was the leading scorer during the recently West Indies Championship with 647 runs which included two centuries.

He said: “It’s a good opportunity to captain. I see it as a role for the future and I normally do well when I have added responsibility so I think it can be a very good challenge. I think it’s a good mixture of boys. They are the top performers so we definitely have a good squad. They have been playing good cricket so it will be an exciting match. It’s good having the experienced players around to share all their knowledge [especially with] me in this new role at this level.”

All matches in the Headley Weekes Tri-Series will be streamed LIVE on the Windies Cricket YouTube channel with LIVE scorecards and ball-by-ball scoring on the Windiescricket.com live match centre.

West Indies Academy: Nyeem Young (captain), Kevlon Anderson, Ackeem Auguste, Joshua Bishop, Teddy Bishop, McKenny Clarke, Tevin Imlach, Joshua James, Johann Layne, Kirk McKenzie, Ashmead Nedd, Kelvin Pitman, Keagan Simmons, Ramon Simmonds, Kevin Wickham

Team Weekes: Alick Athanaze (captain), Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Keacy Carty, Dominic Drakes, Jahmar Hamilton, Brandon King, Jair McAllister, Zachary McCaskie, Veerasammy Permaul, Raymon Reifer, Kevin Sinclair, Nial Smith, Devon Thomas

FULL MATCH SCHEDULE

19-22 April: West Indies Academy beat Team Headley by seven wickets

26-29 April: Team Weekes v West Indies Academy

3-6 May: Team Weekes v Team Headley