Photo: A year ago Javelle Glenn was celebrating taking a catch for the Jamaica Tallawahs against the TKR, yesterday his 3/16 helped the St. Lucia Zouks destroy the Tallawahs in their final preliminary round game.
After an abysmal performance in round robin section of this season’s Hero CPL T-20 competition, the Jamaica Tallawahs run the risk of losing their most loyal fans.
Even before their shocking batting collapse against the St. Lucia Zouks on Sunday, many of their fans had thrown in the towel as the team continued to perform woeful, especially with the bat, but Sunday’s loss left even the most ardent fans dumbfounded.
Seemingly cruising to victory at 84 without loss while chasing a very gettable target of 146, the Tallawahs lost seven wickets for 17 runs as their run chase fizzled to nothing and they tamely surrendered to the Zouks, closing at 134/9 and losing by 11 runs.
One of the Tallawahs nemesis was Jamaican Javelle Glenn who took 3/16 from his four overs. Glenn was a member of the Tallawahs team last year.
The return of veteran bowler Fidel Edwards saw the Jamaican franchise put in a much better performance in the field in restricting the Zouks to a score of less than 150 after they seemed to be on pace to get over 160 early in their innings at bat.
The opening pair of Glen Phillips and Jermaine Blackwood then set the stage for a win for the former champions when they took the score to 84 before Phillips fell just one short of his half century, going for 49 at 84-1 in the 12th over.
Blackwood who had starred with the bat on Saturday when he scored his first ever T-20 half century, soon joined Phillips in the pavilion going for 25 at 86-2 in the 13th over and from then on it was a procession back to the dressing room.
The fragile batting unit experienced an extraordinary collapse to hand the game to the Darren Sammy led Zouks.
Chadwick Walton and captain Rovman Powell have both had miserable tournaments and their partnership produced five runs before Powell went back for 2 at 91-3. Andre Russell went for a one ball duck and at 91-4 the Tallawahs were losing control of the game.
Ten runs later, Walton went run out for 7 at 101-5. Carlos Brathwaite who has been a shadow of himself with the bat, made 2 before he too was back in the pavilion but before he had even taken his seat Veerasammy Permaul, who became the second player to go for a one ball duck, was sitting beside him with the score reading an incredible 103-7.
Suddenly from a position of strength the Tallawahs were teetering on the brink of a famous defeat. And the Zouks would send them over the edge, despite a late order cameo from Nicholas Kirton who made a quick-fire 25.
The experiment of Rovman Powell as captain has failed miserably and this is reflected in how poorly the Tallawahs have been.
The only way the Tallwahs can redeem themselves is to do the virtually impossible and beat the hosts Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) who have been perfect all season.
The Tallawahs are yet to beat any of the other teams in the top four this season and they will face the TKR in Tuesday’s semifinal needing a miracle to make it to the final.
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