A maiden T20 century from Nicholas Pooran kept the hopes alive for the Guyana Amazon Warriors to reach the semi-finals in the Caribbean Premier League and has left the team in admiration.
The 24-year-old left hander was promoted up the order to number four, a move he has been longing for a while now and admitted it was good to ask for something and get that. He contended the result spoke for itself, relating to his promotion.
“For the last couple months I’ve been working hard on my fitness and I wanted to improve on my skills and I know fitness was the way and my girlfriend and Jason Pilgrim I must say they worked with me tremendously hard over the last five months and today I am very happy,” Pooran revealed.
The Trinidadian wicketkeeper/batsman said that it has been a difficult tournament so far with this being his side’s third win of the season but was happy to finish off the innings when it mattered.
“It was a tough tournament for everyone so far. Wicket isn’t the easiest but hopefully today can change everything for my team especially and hopefully we can go one step further this year…You know for the last two years I haven’t been really finishing off games and today this was a big one for me to finish off the game when it mattered the most for my team,” he said.
Pooran added an unbroken 128 runs with Ross Taylor. He believed that it was Taylor’s experience that proved vital in the partnership.
“We were just trying to build a partnership, we knew it was a tough wicket and keep the run rate under 10 and having an experienced guy like him today, to me it was easier because it was just positive,” he highlighted.
His captain Chris Green labeled the innings as a “special” knock that entertained the Warriors on the bench.
“It’s a massive win, that was a special knock, entertaining to come in three down or two down even for Nick [Pooran] and get together with Ross, dig in deep and then to clear the ropes like he did is a special innings from a special player and he stood up and took accountability,” Green expressed.
The captain related that at the half way stage they felt they had leaked “15-20 more runs” than they should but disclosed that they spoke about “one or two batsman standing up and bat.”
Green highlighted that the swap in position was due to Pooran’s ambitions to spend more time at the crease and face more balls and Taylor’s success batting at five.
“Ross has had a lot of success at five and Nick now wants to push up and play higher and it paid of dividends today,” Green noted while adding “I think having [Shimron] Hetmyer and Pooran there at three and four, they are two better players of spin in the Caribbean, Ross can control the innings as he has done in the past games…today we saw he was able to control that game, build a partnership with Nick and just feed him the strike.”
