West Indies pacer and Guyana Amazon Warriors captain Rayad Emrit is banking on the experience of Pakistan T20 veterans Shoaib Malik and Sohail Tanvir in the upcoming season of the Caribbean Premier League.
Emrit took over the captaincy from Martin Guptill in 2016 and last year the team finished third despite a poor start. Looking forward to the 2018 season which takes place from August 8 to September 16, Emrit said the additions made to their squad should help the team excel.
“We have always been there and thereabouts to win the trophy. It’s a bit different this year, we have Shoaib Malik who has the wealth of experience. With him coming into the team, especially with the batting, he knows how to win games and hopefully he can do that for us. We have a decent bowling attack, Rashid Khan isn’t there but Imran Tahir is there as well as Sohail Tanvir so I think we’re covered pretty ok.”
In the 2017 tournament, Emrit finishing third on the wicket-takers list with 15 scalps. Tanvir was the top wicket-taker with 17 and has been retained by the Guyanese team for 2018. Emrit says having Tanvir at the other end makes his job easier.
“Tanvir knows how to swing the new ball, a lot of guys don’t swing the new ball in the Caribbean. On his day, when he starts swinging it, he cause a lot of trouble for the opponents. He started to swing the ball later on in the tournament and that’s where we got our momentum. If he can do that from the start, definitely he’ll be a handful again.
“It’s easy when he does the job, it’s easier for the other guys at the end, even though it’s going to be a lot of pressure on us to maintain the pressure. He’s been brilliant and as I said, if he can do the job again for us it’ll make the other bowlers job a lot easier.”
