PROVIDENCE, Guyana – After a nervous opening round, the six teams will be energized and ready to entertain the fans on Thursday for the second round of the Cricket West Indies Women’s T20 Blaze tournament at the Guyana National Stadium.
The teams will continue to battle for the top spots in the fast-paced format. Trinidad and Tobago will be looking forward to better performance after they suffered the heaviest defeat in the opening round, going down to Jamaica by 78 runs.
Head Coach Kelvin Williams says he has faith his team can bounce back from the loss when they face hosts Guyana in the day’s first encounter at 10 am. This promises to be an action-packed encounter with both teams keen to register their first points.
“We thought it was going to be a competitive game for us but Jamaica getting the runs they did, I don’t know if that was on the minds of our batters. It just seemed like a lack of concentration,” Williams said. “We’ve had conversations with the players coming off the loss and we’ve discussed the batters taking a responsibility. Coming up against we are going to be a different team and we have to.”
Defending champions Barbados were able to secure a win against Guyana, by seven runs they defended a small target of 86 runs. That has given that a huge boost of confidence and momentum heading into Wednesday’s challenge against the Leeward Islands, who lost their first match to the Windward Islands. Senior fast-bowler Shamilia Connell credited her team’s bowling for the amazing fight
“Not the performance we wanted with the bat, but the bowlers came in and did what we had to. Aaliyah Alleyne took her career-best figures of 3-18 in regional cricket and Shakera Selman also had three wickets,” Connell said. “We are looking forward to our second-round match against the Leewards and hopefully our batters can put up a better total.”
In the other matchup, Jamaica will take on the Windward Islands after both teams registered wins in the opening round.
Fans can follow LIVE ball-by-ball action from all of today’s matches on the Windies Cricket YouTube channel https://bit.ly/2QIMGjj
Match Schedule
Trinidad & Tobago vs Guyana at 10 am (9 am Jamaica Time)
Leeward Islands vs Barbados at 2:30 pm (1:30 pm Jamaica Time)
Jamaica vs the Windward Islands at 7 pm (6 pm Jamaica Time)