JAMAICA spinner Nikita Miller said the tactic of employing a fourpronged pace attack worked "pretty well" during the recently concluded Super50 tournament in Trinidad & Tobago.
The left-arm orthodox slow bowler said the pacers did a commendable job in conditions which mostly suited them, minus the belowpar showing in the tournament opener against the Windward Islands.
“It was a combination I am not used to, where we have four faster bowlers with a main spinner and a part-timer and we did pretty well, in my eyes," the 31-year-old told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday.
Pacer Jerome Taylor, making another return from injury, was Jamaica's top bowler, taking six wickets in three matches. Another seamer, Andre Russell, took six wickets in four outings.
The gap left by the lack of a second front-line spinner was capably plugged by part-time off-break bowler Tamar Lambert, who was given the Best All-rounder award for his exploits with bat and ball. Lambert was quite economical while accounting for five victims in four matches.
He made a total of 122 runs, including a best of 88. "The first game, the fast bowlers didn’t get the ball in the right areas, but after that they improved and they took wickets," added Miller, who took three wickets in the competition.
Jamaica won their three preliminary round games, but were shot down for a farcical team total of 49 in a semi-final loss to the hosts at the Queen's Park Oval.
The general consensus pointed to the lack of fortitude shown by the batsmen against Trinidad's seam bowlers.
Though maintaining that the squad — bereft of the premier batting pair of Christopher Gayle and Marlon Samuels — performed admirably in parts, Miller was openly disappointed at the batting flop which caused the embarrassing tournament exit.
He said that setting a target of 180 runs was what he had in mind when Jamaica were forced to take first strike. "Overall it was an all-round good performance in the tournament, but we are very disappointed we lost the way we did.
It was one of those days when everything went wrong. But we have to pick up ourselves and just move on. "Trinidad bowled pretty well, and the pitch wasn’t great but we made bad decisions when batting.
It wasn’t a pitch to be bowled out for 49. I figured it was a 180 [total] pitch,†he said. The spinner was, however, pleased with how some of the younger batsmen “equipped themselves batting-wise†in “difficult situations†during the competition.
Nkrumah Bonner, 25, made a top score of 122 not out against Guyana in his tournament aggregate of 146 runs.
The 26-year-old Andre McCarthy was Jamaica’s second best batsman with a total of 137, including a highest of 93 versus the Windward Islands
