Nikita Miller’s parting advice to his Jamaica Franchise teammates is to concentrate on bonus points if they want to make headway in the second phase of the WICB Professional Cricket League (PCL) starting Friday. The left-arm spinner, Jamaica’s one-day captain, has been called up to replace off-spinner Sunil Narine in the West Indies World Cup squad currently in Sydney.
Jamaica Franchise lie second on 50 points, seven adrift of leaders Guyana Jaguars. The pair do battle next weekend in a critical clash at Sabina Park, when the PCL resumes following the Super50 Championship.
“One of the reasons they [Guyana] are leading us is because the bonus points they’ve picked up with their batting. We need to improve that aspect and hopefully we can catch them,” Miller told the Jamaica Observer newspaper.
“It is very important to do well against Guyana because what we don’t want is a team to be running away in the points standings.”
Unlike Guyana, Jamaica have played unbeaten so far in the competition. They opened with a narrow 13-run victory over Windward Islands Volcanoes before drawing with Barbados Pride in a rain-ravaged encounter in Barbados.
Jamaica then beat Trinidad and Tobago Red Force by 37 runs and Leeward Islands Hurricanes by four wickets, in the next two rounds. Miller said despite Jamaica’s success, the batsmen needed to step up and support the bowling department.