Game-by-game approach for Warriors as title defence begins tomorrow

The Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) gets underway today in Antigua and Barbuda, and defending champions the Guyana Amazon Warriors will open their account on Friday against new franchise, the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons.
This year’s CPL season would offer a new challenge to the local franchise, who ae now keen on retaining their title.
Before the team’s departure for Antigua, the Evening News Sport caught up with Coach Ryan Hercules at a training session, and he was open to divulging some of the key elements that Warriors have been working on in the pre-season.
“We’re looking to fit a few blocks in terms of what we did last year; one of that will be the opening spot. We’re looking at some of the options for when we get into the tournament, so when we get to Antigua, we make sure we have some solid positions with the guys here, and we know what we’re going to do with them. Obviously, most of the guys who’ve been around since last year are back with us this year; it’s been good. Pretty impressed with the guys in terms of most of them who haven’t been playing cricket for quite some time, the local guys, coming out and putting the work in,” Hercules shared.

With the Warriors retaining much of their Championship winning team, Hercules has talked up how beneficial that move would be. The GAW Coach divulged, “That’s a big part, you know, we’re like a family. So, when you have the guys coming back this year, it’s like no strangers. From a coaching perspective, we know what they’re capable of doing even if they’re not up to par as yet, we know we’ll go into Antigua and get some training sessions done.
“We know what the guys are capable of doing, we trust them, we trust the process in terms of what they can go out and do. Last year they did an excellent job, obviously this year, defending the title, it will call for a bit more in terms of how we go out and execute. So, it’s a key factor,” Hercules went on to add.
Quizzed about how their approach will change from focus on winning now to defending, Hercules echoed sentiments similar to Captain Imran Tahir’s about the need to take it game by game and play good cricket.
“For me, I’ll say to the guys, ‘We’re not going to pay much emphasis on defending, we want to win games.’ We know where we want to be when we get home to Guyana. We crossed that hurdle in terms of winning, so it takes a lot of pressure off the guys knowing we can do it this year, we’ve done it last year,” Hercules responded.
“So, for us this year, we want to defend the title yes, but we keep it simple, we play game by game. We go to different conditions, we assess, we play good cricket. We did that last year, and we plan to do the same thing this year.”
The Republic Bank CPL will commence with a clash between Antigua’s Falcons and the St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots at 19:00hrs tonight, while the Amazon Warriors’ clash with Antigua will bowl off on Friday at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium.