Patriots’ best is yet to come, says Gayle

Chris Gayle

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – After their pulsating victory over the Jamaica Tallawahs in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) on Wednesday night, captain of the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots Chris Gayle believes that his team is yet to deliver an all-around performance.

The Patriots chased down a record total of 192 at the Guyana National Stadium to win by two wickets and set up a semifinal clash against the Trinbago Knight Riders today for a place in the final.

However, Gayle said his team is yet to deliver their best performance.

“We are still looking for that dominant bowling display from our team. We still haven’t gotten it right, but once we can keep to the basics and restrict teams to a lower score, we can make it easy on our batsmen,” Gayle said moments after the victory.

He said even though a record total was required to win the game, he always had confidence that the side could pull it off.

“Even though we allowed them to get to that target, it was a good wicket and at the end of the day, the conditions were always going to favour the side which batted second. We didn’t get the start that we wanted, but in the middle order we had some crucial innings from Fabian Allen and Brandon King. Those innings actually helped us to build a momentum and in the end, Anton and Cutting really finished it off,” Gayle noted.

Meanwhile, disappointed captain of the Jamaica Tallawahs Andre Russell blamed his bowlers for the defeat, which eliminated them from the tournament.

“It just goes to show tonight [Wednesday night] these guys get the runs very easily, so we just have to regroup again and next year refocus and do something different.

“The team that we have we back each and every one, the bowling department and the batting department, but it just goes to show that if you are not up to the task you are going to be the losing team at the end of the night,” Russell said.