Tallawahs CEO backs captain and coach, says team needed specialist batsman

Jamaica Tallawahs CEO Jeff Miller is standing behind Head Coach Floyd Reifer and Captain Rovman Powell following the team’s disappointing performance in the 2020 Hero CPL.

The Tallawahs, champions in 2013 and 2016, won only three of 11 games and were eliminated in the semi-finals by eventual champions Trinbago Knight Riders in what was a lop-sided affair.

Powell, who scored 33 in that semi-final loss, his best score of the season, had an otherwise disastrous season with the bat.

Prior to last week’s semi-final match, Powell had scores of 8, 23, 2, 4, 1, 2, 5, and 2. He was equally poor with the ball, failing to take a wicket while conceding 109 runs in a season he would want to quickly forget.

However, notwithstanding the disappointing season, Miller said both still have his full support.

“I am going to fully back the coach and I am going to fully back the captain. They both did the job at hand with the personnel that they had. I am not going to bash any of them,” he said.

“This is a team, not individuals and both of them did as much as they can with the personnel that they had.”

That said, Miller concedes that the Tallawahs went into the season knowing that they had deficiencies in the batting. Andre McCarthy, for example, was unable to travel to Trinidad for the tournament after being exposed to someone who was infected with the COVID-19 virus. His absence was missed.

“We can see from the performance that we were lacking that one batsman who was a specialist batsman who would come in a serve a purpose and we would have the big hitters around that batsman, but unfortunately, we did not have that one specialist batsman and it showed up in our performances from the batters,” Miller said.

“McCarthy, or any other specialist batsman, would have helped us out this year.”