FROM THE BOUNDARY - One more Jamaica bowler, please
published:
Friday | February 22, 2008
Jerome Taylor ... to spearhead Jamaica's attack in Saturday night's semi-final against Guyana. - File
THE STANFORD Twenty/20 competition moves into its semi-final round this evening in St John's.
With the four semi-finalists being defending champions Guyana, the 2006 runners-up Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados, the men, so to speak, have been separated from the boys and it is time to rumble - first, this evening and tomorrow evening, for US$500,000 each to the two winners, and then, on Sunday, for another US$500,000, for the winners' prize of US$1 million.
Although only one team can win, looking at the teams, any one of the four can win. All four believe they can win and, because of that, it should be a stirring contest right down to the wire.
Who will win it? No one knows.
Twenty overs is not a long time and one good knock, particularly from a batsman in the team batting second, can be a winning knock. Twenty overs, therefore, makes it almost a lottery and any number can play and it would be a fool, or almost a fool, who would bet his money on who will walk away, not so much with the winners' rings, but also, and more so, with the bonanza.
In this fast-action version of the game, in this, to an extent, hit-or-miss version of the game, there is only one thing that is certain: there will be loads of excitement going through the night.
The prize money, for example, is so much and so tempting that each and every one of the players wants a piece of it, and the atmosphere - the music, the cheering, the dancing and the shaking - is such that the adrenaline of the players, and more so the batsmen, will be racing all night long.
Excitement
That suggests that the bats will be swinging all night and that although there will be many misses, the ball, or rather the balls, will be flying in every direction.
Although no one, up to now, and definitely not as far as I know, coaches a batsman how to hit them despite the fact that, in any version of the game, they account for the most runs from one stroke and for a lot of excitement in the game, there will be many, many sixes - and you can bet your last dollar on that.
Who will win the booty? With batsmen like Christopher Gayle and Brenton Parchment, Marlon Samuels, Danza Hyatt, Shaun Findlay, Wavell Hinds, Xavier Marshall and wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh Jnr., with bowlers like Jerome Taylor, Daren Powell and Nikita Miller, plus Gayle and Samuels, and with the quality fielding they paraded against Nevis in their last match, Jamaicans believe that Jamaica will win and there is no reason why they should not.
Twenty20 cricket is a short version of the game, however, while one batsman can bat right through the innings, a bowler can only bowl four overs and, with that in mind, remembering that the chances of a team needing eight batsmen - good batsmen at that - to bat in a 20/20 over match are almost nil, remembering that, even apart from an injury or two, one bowler, or maybe more than one, may not be bowling well and that a team may need someone else to bowl a few overs, and remembering that both Gayle and Samuels are part-timers, that Gayle has not been bowling regularly of late, that Hinds also has not been bowling regularly, Jamaica should look at their combination and include another specialist bowler.
Afraid of their batsmen
Tony Becca
Unless they are afraid of their batsmen, unless they believe that seven from Gayle and Parchment, Samuels, Hyatt, Findlay, Hinds, Marshall and Baugh cannot bat for 20 overs or cannot make enough runs in a twenty20 contest, Jamaica should drop one of the batsmen and play another bowler.
Even without going all the way and playing five specialist batsmen, plus a wicketkeeper/ batsman, whose responsibility would be to bat for 20 overs and to make some runs, and five specialist bowlers whose job would be to bowl the allotted 20 overs for as few runs as possible, such a combination - six specialist batsmen, plus the wicketkeeper who has represented both Jamaica and the West Indies as a specialist batsman, and four specialist bowlers plus Gayle, Samuels and Hinds if really necessary - would leave Jamaica with a balanced side and one prepared for any eventualities.
In terms of their bowling, and for whatever reason, it certainly would prevent any possibility of Jamaica, with the luxury of one batsman too many, ending up one bowler short and, for the second time, kissing the US$1 million, or even half of it, goodbye.
