Our fielding let us down – Coley

Jamaica Scorpions head coach Andre Coley says his team’s biggest failing in the Super50 Cup tournament was their fielding.

Coley and the rest of the squad arrived in the island yesterday after the team failed to make it to the semi-finals of the tournament.

The Scorpions finished in third position on 16 points with four wins and four losses in Zone ‘A’, which was topped by Barbados Pride with 24 points, same as the Leeward Islands Hurricanes.

The Scorpions entered their final group game having to beat the Hurricanes handsomely to progress to the final four. They, however, fell short by 13 runs, bringing their campaign to a screeching end.

BIGGEST FAILURE

For Coley, missing out on the semi-finals was extremely disappointing, but he believes that they only have themselves to blame for the failure.

“Our biggest failing was in our fielding. We created a number of opportunities in most of our games, but we put down crucial catches, which ended up costing us games. We weren’t consistently good in all departments in enough games, and going forward, we have to be better with our game awareness and our decision-making has to improve,” said Coley.

When the numbers were crunched, the Scorpions were said to have put down nearly 20 catches in the field throughout their eight matches, with those dropped chances costing the team well over 300 runs.

Despite the startling statistic, Coley was keen to highlight the positives throughout the campaign.

“From a batting standpoint, our team totals were good apart from the first game, where we scored under 200 runs. We were able to average around 270 runs per innings after that, and I am pleased to see a lot of individual performances as well,” he added.

FUTURE STANDOUTS

The first-time Scorpions head coach could not help but single out some players who he believes will do big things for the franchise in the future.

“I must commend Nkrumah Bonner, who stood out for the team in this tournament. I was really impressed with his maturity and the way he was able to change his game when batting pace and spin. Captain Rovman Powell was also very good with his ball-striking, while Andre McCarthy came into his own, along with Assad Fudadin, who gave us a lot of stability at the top of the order,” Coley said.

Powell ended the tournament with 412 runs in eight innings, with two centuries and two half-centuries, while McCarthy came in second in the run-scoring for the Scorpions with 363 runs with three half-centuries.

Bonner scored one century and two half-centuries in his 354 runs, while Assad Fudadin scored one century and two half-centuries in his 345 runs opening the batting.

From a bowling standpoint, pacer Oshane Thomas led the pack with 17 wickets with best figures of four for 42.

Left-arm chinaman bowler Dennis Bulli picked up 12 wickets in six matches, while part-time off-spinner McCarthy grabbed 11 wickets.

After a week’s break, the Scorpions will begin preparation for the Regional Four-Day Championships, which begins in January 2020.