By Neil Kumar
THE 2020 Hero Caribbean Premier League tournament was indeed a success. However, it is the Cricket Carnival flavour in this edition that makes it a great success.
The Jamaica Tallawahs defeated the Barbados Royals to win the prestigious Caribbean Premier League 2022 title.

The Jamaica Tallawahs benefitted from good leadership with Rovman Powell really putting his everything into the game. Tallawahs’ Brandon King, Shamarh Brooks, Chris Green and Fabian Allen excelled for their team. While the Barbados Royals dominated the preliminary rounds of the tournament, it was the Tallawahs determination and high team spirit that motivated them to victory.

As for the Guyana Amazon Warriors, the management and the leadership did not provide or certainly did not receive the quality performance from the team. The batting was miserably poor. The two opening batsmen failed. Chandrapaul Hemraj and Paul Sterling did not give the team the anticipated start. Neither, of them deserved their place in the team.

The skipper, Shimron Hetmyer, is a world class batsman. However, he failed to score a single half century in the tournament. Hetmyer must play as a captain and bat higher in the order. He never looked certain as to his role in the team. Batting as a finisher must come with scoring runs in the last few overs in the game. Players such as Colin Ingram and Heinrich Klaasen were poor players to buy. Shai Hope is a good enough wicket-keeper batsman and with him in the team an extra solid batsman was necessary.

The all-rounders are very good to have in the team. However, these hard-hitting middle-order batsmen need to be carefully managed. Odean Smith could be a magnificent, hard-hitting batsman. However, he should be at the crease with a solid batsman who could cajole and guide him. As for Romario Shepherd, he is a powerful player in the making. Shepherd is a hard-hitting batsman, a quick bowler, who could be a genuine match winner. Keemo Paul is a utility player. His bowling must improve and be more consistent. As for his batting, he could be another match-winner. Guyana Amazon Warriors must be more convincing in their batting. They are capable of scoring runs quickly; however, the team batting must be more consistent.

The Warriors bowling must be supported by better fielding. The big drop catch by wicket-keeper Rahmanullah Gurbaz was the turn of the Warriors winning flow.

Shamarh Brooks was dropped at five and he went on to make an undefeated century. The fielding leaves much to be desired. The strength of the all-rounders is their ability to hit the ball hard and powerful. These quick bowlers must be able to bowl an immaculate line and length. The Warriors team is young and players such as the skipper, Shepherd, Paul, Smith and Gudakesh Motie are all players who can come good in the future.

The massive crowd support was indeed motivating and expectations were sky high that the Warriors should have defeated the Tallawahs in their semi-final match. That dropped catch was the end of the Warriors’ hope.

Cricket, glorious Cricket, will continue to unite our people as we build a ‘one Guyana’.