PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sporting Alert – Barbados Pride and the Windward Islands Volcanoes will battle in the second semi-final of the 2016 Nagico Super50 Thursday at Queen’s Park Oval.
The game will be streamed live on ESPN3 and WatchESPN, starting at 12:20 PM ET.
Both sides head into the matchup full of confidence, but admitted that it is going to take some work to get past this barrier with defending champion Trinidad and Tobago Red Force awaits the winner.
Pride secured a place in the semi-finals after beating Trinidad and Tobago Red Force by three wickets in their final round game in Group A on Sunday and the Jason Holder led squad is hoping for a similar result against the Volcanoes.
The Windward Islands, in the meantime top Group B which was hosted in St Kitts.
Barbados Pride Team – Photo by WICB Media/Ashley Allen
“It should be a very good match,” Holder said looking at the matchup. “Obviously, we’ve been here in Trinidad for the last couple weeks and we’ve become accustomed to the conditions here whereas Windwards are coming from St Kitts to different conditions,” Holder said.
“I think both teams are pretty evenly matched but I think we’ve been playing some pretty decent cricket that should get us past them in the semi-final.”
Although he knows the Windward Islands will be a tough team to battle against and will not be underestimated, Holder remains confident that the momentum is with Barbados in the clash to secure a spot in the final of the Regional Nagico Super50 competition.
“I think we have the edge going into the game,” the West Indies captain said.
“We’ve been winning convincingly in our last three games so I think the momentum is basically with us but the Windwards should not be underestimated.”
Volcanoes were steady throughout the group stage and finished with a five-run victory over the Leeward Islands on Sunday.
They won four of the six games in Group B with the only defeat coming against Combined Campuses and Colleges when they fell by 91 runs in the penultimate round.
Windwards have been solid in the tournament thus far, but captain Liam Sebastien thinks there are still areas that need improvement.
“We could have been better in terms of our performance especially in our batting. The bowlers have been doing an excellent job,” Sebastien noted.
“I would’ve liked the batsmen to contribute a little more in terms of bigger scores but at the end of the day we topped the group and obviously that was an objective we set out to achieve and we did achieve and we’re happy with that.
“It’s obviously going to be a tough game. When you get to this stage of the competition it’s win or go home so you have to have your best day or your best game or obviously at the end of the day, you may not be on the winning side.
“You may have a bad day and still have a win but what we hope is that the batsmen would come into their own at this point of the competition.”
