Cricket: Regional Under-19 Tournament Update
The schedule of the WICB U19 Tournament gave the ICC Americas team a bye yesterday [Aug 13] and the squad used the day off to work on their batting skills, utilising a netball court to work on playing spin.
The ICC Americas team — that includes Bermuda’s Kamau Leverock, Delray Rawlins, Christian Burgess and Tre Manders — recorded a win when they played Leeward Islands in the Regional Under-19 Tournament being held in St. Kitts.
Spin was the undoing of the upper and middle order on Day 1 and caused trouble during their win over the Windwards on Day two. The players practised for an hour doing drills that encourage using their feet to get down the wicket to the ball before manipulating the ball into gaps in the field.
The best players of spin in the world generally either use their feet to get to the pitch of the ball or they sweep, both techniques make it difficult for a spinner to maintain his ideal length.
Coach Andy Pick said: “In the first game our batsman were anchored in the crease and we allowed their spinners to settle on to a length, as the dots built up we pressed the panic button and played a number of poor shots. The drill work we are doing will hopefully give the players another option when it comes to playing spin bowling”.
Today [Aug 14] sees the ICC Americas team go up against the Windward Islands in game three.
