He was the top-scorer when his Dhaka Dynamites side won the Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 final last week, and smacked 148 in his last One-Day International for the West Indies; now Evin Lewis will aim to spark a revival for the Trinidad and Tobago Red Force in the regional Professional Cricket League.
The explosive opener has been included in the Red Force travelling party for their round five match in Guyana against the Jaguars, starting Friday.
Lewis is the only change to the squad, replacing fellow left-hander Jyd Goolie. But he will be a welcome addition for Red Force coach Gus Logie and captain Yannick Ottley.
“We will be strengthened by Evin Lewis and we hope he can add firepower at the top of the order,” Logie told the Express yesterday.
The Red Force returned home yesterday after suffering a comprehensive beating by 132 runs against the Jamaica Scorpions inside three days at Sabina Park on the weekend. It was the team’s second loss in their last three games
At Sabina, they succumbed in the main to left-arm spinner Nikita Miller who took 12 wickets in the match, including a career-best nine for 41 in the second innings as the Red Force batsmen only mustered 205, after posting 206 in their first innings.
But it was not only the batting that concerned Logie in this match.
“We bemoan the fact that we need to perform consistently as a group,” he said.
“Our bowling fell short in the first innings…At the end of the day we know the Jamaican pitches, and by the second and third day, spin takes control and the spinners held sway.”
Logie felt the Scorpions should not have been allowed to post as many as 314 after Miller had won the toss and chose to bat.
“Jon Russ Jagessar was not at his best. He got a wicket with a no-ball and young (Andre) McCarthy went on to get 82. Those little glitches we needed to tighten up on.”
And again, the Red Force coach expressed concern over the lack of a collective effort in matches.
“We have performances that we could be proud of, but we need more than one individual to step at the same time; we need partnerships; we need a lot more patience at the crease; we need to bat a lot more overs to put pressure on the opposition.”
Against the Scorpions, returning West Indies One-Day player Jason Mohammed with 91 and opener Kyle Hope with 65 were the only ones to pass 20 in the first innings; while all-rounder Imran Khan’s 52 at the top of the order was supported only by 35 from Hope and 30 from skipper Ottley in the second innings.
“We have been scoring quickly but if you only bat 50 overs at 3.9, four runs an over, you are only going to get 200-plus, so we really need to bat 90 overs a day, bat a day-and-a-half…We need more of the top batsmen to come to the party. We need more than 20s and 30s from them.”
Logie added: “We are all disappointed and we are promising to improve.”
The team leaves for Guyana tomorrow, and although that assignment has not produced good results for the Red Force in the past, Logie noted that, “we gonna take heart from the fact that Guyana has started a bit started slower than they normally do…The good thing is that most of the teams are within reach in terms of the points; no one has gone away. One win or two and you are back on top.”
Red Force squad: Yannick Ottley (Captain), Kyle Hope, Evin Lewis, Isaiah Rajah, Jason Mohammed, Yannic Cariah, Roshon Primus, Imran Khan, Steven Katwaroo, Marlon Richards, Jon Russ Jagessar, Sheldon Cottrell, Khary Pierre.
