BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – Jamaica Tallawahs head coach Junior Bennett says it will be important for his side to make a winning start to the 2015 Caribbean Premier League, when they face reigning champions Barbados Tridents here tonight.The Chris Gayle-led Tallawahs open their campaign against the Tridents who raised the curtain on the tournament last Saturday by trouncing last year’s losing finalists, Guyana Amazon Warriors, by 49 runs at Kensington Oval.
Bennett, in his first year as head coach, told reporters here yesterday that the Tallawahs did not want to find themselves too far behind early on and therefore were focussing on picking up early victories.
“In any competition you want to get off to a winning start, you don’t want to play what we call catch-up cricket,” Bennett said.
“You just want to go out there in front and remain in front and based on the format of the competition whereby the team that tops the group stage will go straight to the final, you would want to do that instead of going into the playoffs.”
He continued: “Last year we stumbled because we needed a win from two games and lost both games and in the end, the net run rate really cost us because if you look back at last year, all four top teams ended with the same amount of points in the preliminaries. It is extremely important that we start on the right footing this year.”
When they two teams met last year in St Kitts, Tridents crushed the Tallawahs by 88 runs in a lopsided encounter, and Bennett said he was under no illusions about the nature of today’s task.
“Definitely we know this is going to be a tough match. The Tridents have played well over the years and even in the first year, they didn’t reach the final but they played some good consistent cricket right throughout and last year they won,” he explained.
“I believe all the teams this year are good teams and we’re not going to target a particular team, we just want to go out there and play our own game and play good consistent cricket right throughout the entire tournament.”
Tallawahs face a Tridents side which produced a clinical performance on Saturday, under lights to win comprehensively.
They racked up 158 for six with captain Kieron Pollard top-scoring with 48 and then bundled out Amazon Warriors for a paltry 109, with seamer Ravi Rampaul and left-arm spinner Robin Peterson picking up three wickets apiece.
Rampaul told reporters it was important the hosts sustained this momentum, though the nature of the opposition was different.
“We wanted to start on a winning note and we got that victory so we just want to continue playing consistent cricket, trying to win all of our home games and take it from there,” he said.
“I think all the teams are even so it is who plays the better cricket on the day. We’ll take the momentum from the first game even though it is a fresh game starting from ball one, and try to carry it on.”
South Africa Peterson, in his first taste of CPL cricket, said Tallawahs would prove a challenge but it was one he was ready to embrace.
“It’s always nice to start well and make a contribution but like we said in the team, that’s in the past now, we have a new game, new challenges, a high quality batting line up and you know the names on the Jamaican team so it will be tough work especially trying to limit them tomorrow.”