Scorpions seek rare win in Guyana

The Jamaica Scorpions will have to pull off something that they have never done before, and that is beat the Guyana Jaguars on their home turf as the two sides battle in their fourth-round Cricket West Indies Professional Cricket League (PCL) Regional 4-Day encounter which starts today at Providence.

In 10 encounters since the PCL started, the Scorpions have lost all but one match against the Jaguars. The scenario is even worse at the Guyana National Stadium, as the Scorpions have succumbed in all five matches at that venue.

Sitting bottom of the standings with 21.2 points, Scorpions coach Andre Coley believes that a win against Guyana could push them closer to their goal of being at the mid-table mark at the halfway stage of the 10-round competition.

“If you look at the current table, a win could push you right up into the top half, and so we are hoping that we can get a positive result here in Guyana and be consistent in the remaining fixtures,” Coley said.

The Scorpions will have a tough task on their hands in the batting department as they will be without Windies players Brandon King and Rovman Powell, who are expected to fly out of the Caribbean this weekend for the tour of Sri Lanka.

In their absence, the bulk of the batting will lie squarely on the shoulders of the experienced Jermaine Blackwood, who needs just 58 more Championship runs to get to the milestone of 3,000.

The returning left-handed Paul Palmer Jr, who is second in the run-scoring chart with 262 runs in four innings, is also expected to be among the runs with Nkrumah Bonner, and captain John Campbell.

Coley is expecting his bowling unit to continue doing the things that they have done well and execute the plan of targeting specific Guyanese players.

“We have discussed some key players in the opposition which we will target and we have identified some of their weaknesses and will be exploiting that.”

The Jaguars will welcome the return of left-handed all-rounder Raymon Reifer to give a boost to their batting and bowling.

Squads:

SCORPIONS:

John Campbell (c)

Jermaine Blackwood

Nkrumah Bonner

Assad Fudadin

Derval Green

Patrick Harty Jr

Jamie Merchant

Marquino Mindley

Nicholson Gordon

Paul Palmer Jr

Pete Salmon

Denis Smith

Oraine Williams

JAGUARS:

Leon Johnson (c)

Christopher Barnwell

Devendra Bishoo

Anthony Bramble

TagenarineChanderpaul

ChanderpaulHemraj

Tevin Imlach

Keon Joseph

Veerasammy Permaul

Raymon Reifer

Kevin Sinclair

Vishaul Singh

Nial Smith