Jamaica Kingsmen riding momentum of Tridents’ defeat into Qualifier 2

The Jamaica Kingsmen are into today’s Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Qualifier Two following a commanding victory over the Barbados Tridents two nights ago at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown.

While Andre Russell and Hunain Shah got the visitors off to a magnificent start with the ball, Maaz Sadaqat followed up with a commanding century in the chase to knock off 145 in 14.1 overs.
While the Tridents had gotten the better of the Kingsmen twice before this season, teenaged Jamaican china-man Vitel Lawes admitted that they just couldn’t let it happen a third time.
“I mean, I thought whoever won the toss won the game, to be honest. Barbados beat we two times; I think it was pretty tight games. I don’t see any world where they could have beat us three times in a row. So, today we just tried to make a statement, and I think we did a really good job at doing that,” Lawes told Guyana Times Sport exclusively.
The teenage spin sensation added about their performance on Wednesday night, “I think both times they beat us; it’s we beating ourselves. They didn’t really outplay us, per se. So, it’s just us to tighten up on those areas that we’ve been slacking off in, and I think we did a pretty good job of that tonight, winning with just losing one wicket.
Lawes went on to praise his team’s bowling effort and Sadaqat’s belligerent knock.
“I mean, we’re always talking about taking the first blow, and I think we did a really good job of doing that tonight even though Quinton and Green stuck in for a good partnership. I think it’s a game of cricket; it can go either way. So, we did a good job of getting the dangerous batters early and restrict them,” he opined.
The youngster added, “I think it was a perfect innings. He didn’t go out there looking to push it around because it was a small total; he looked to take the game from them from early on. I think that was a good mindset from him to try to win the game from in the powerplay.”
Shifting focus to Friday’s Qualifier Lawes doesn’t have a preference in opponent but hopes the Kingsmen can show up good once again.
“I don’t have any preference, to be honest, but anybody comes, we have to play them at the end of the day. So, it’s just for us to go and look at any little, small areas. I think we dropped a couple of chances in the field today. I think it’s just for us to tighten up on that. Look for repeated performance with the bat again, and I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting game, come Friday.” Lawes told this publication.
Meanwhile, on the losing side, Tridents’ Captain Chris Green rued his team’s fortunes on Wednesday night.
Green told this publication exclusively, “I think we were blown away in the powerplay when we batted. Jamaica had the better of the conditions tonight; they were able to bowl with a dry ball, dryer surface, and their spinners were able to extract a lot more spin.”
“On the flip side, Maaz Sadaqat really blew us away. When we started, straight away that ball was wet. I thought we fought hard to get to 144, had 4 for how many in the powerplay and then five down soon after. So, really proud of our efforts, really proud of our fight. It was amazing to get the support of the island, the people of Barbados, to win four out of five to secure qualification.”
“We came here full of confidence, and you know, disappointing to go out the way that we did, but still so much to be proud of,” he went on to share.
Quizzed about their recovery from 30-5 to 144-6, Green responded, “Definitely, I think we were probably still 10-15 runs short, below par, but from that position, to get to that total, yeah. Quinton and I scraped up to get to that total, and we did our absolute best, and same with the ball.”
“I can’t really fault us; we gave it our absolute all. A guy scored a hundred; sometimes you just have to tip the cap and accept defeat, and you know, it was an incredible knock,” he concluded.
Qualifier Two is set for 19:00h local time on Friday evening.