Babwah hails Central Sports deep batting line-up

Central Sports defeated Queen’s Park by two wickets on Saturday at the Brian Lara Academy in Tarouba and will now meet Powergen on Thursday for a place in Friday’s final.

Babwah, speaking to Newsday yesterday, said a deep batting line-up led Central Sports to victory over the Parkites.

“We bowled pretty decent in spurts but a couple bowlers went for some runs.

“The pitch was not batsman friendly but we had a good effort from our batsmen throughout the middle and lower-middle order. Everyone chipped in and gave us some input and that is what took us through because we have a good all-round team down to the end; all 11 men could bat and that is what took us over the line,” he said.

Babwah knows Powergen will be a challenge for Central Sports. “Like against Queen’s Park, we are not going in overconfident, we know Powergen is a very strong team, they have a pretty strong batting line-up and some decent bowlers in there,” he said. The Central Sports captain said Powergen’s international experience is an asset for the Penal club, with the likes of West Indies trio Andre Fletcher, Evin Lewis and Jason Mohammed in their camp.

Babwah, who turns 40 in July, along with Guyanese Royston Crandon are the senior players in the team guiding the youngsters in the team.

“Youth and experience is always a good mix in any format of cricket or any type of sport.

We have some good youngsters like Kamil (Pooran), Steven Taylor, who came in to play this particular tournament with us.

Together with Jahron Alfred, Kristopher Ramsaran, some good young cricketers coming up. My job is not too difficult, it is just to guide these guys. They have the potential, they have the talent, it is just to fix what is above the shoulder. The talent is always there but with a lot of cricketers throughout, it is more mental.” Babwah, playing for the first time at the Brian Lara Academy, is impressed by the facility, but says the pitch needs to improve especially for T20 cricket.

“I think it is a very nice stadium, beautiful ground, nice facilities, but they could do some work with the pitch __ that is the only downfall I could see right now.

For T20 cricket especially, you need good batting tracks for excitement. Probably it will get better since this is the first tournament there. It is hard to judge now but other than that (it is) very good.”