Left-arm seamer Sohail Tanvir has been retained by the Guyana Amazon Warriors for this year’s Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL). This will be the Pakistan all-rounder’s third season with the franchise after he was selected in the US$160,000 salary bracket.
Tanvir, also an explosive batsman, says he is looking forward to his third year with the team.
“I played the last two seasons with them and I enjoyed my time with them,” he said. “We have got good communication and good relationships with the management and the owner. We don’t have big names in the team – even last year we didn’t have big names – but the reason we do well is that we gel very well and play as a team.”
The Amazon Warriors have come close to winning the Hero CPL, making the knockout stages in each of the previous five editions of the tournament, including three appearances in the final.
Tanvir finished as the leading wicket-taker in the 2017 tournament, and his five wickets for just three runs against Barbados was the best bowling performance of last year’s event. He says everything just clicked for him that night at the Kensington Oval.
“Well, to be honest, at the early part of the tournament I was struggling a bit with my back,” he recalled. “I didn’t do well in Florida and the first couple of games but I knew I had the ability. I have done it in the past many times, so I was waiting for my moment…I played alongside Eoin Morgan at the T10 tournament. He mentioned to me that if you bowled this ball to any left-hand batsman you will get him out nine times out of ten. That was one of the days that comes hardly once or twice in your life – when everything goes well.”
Tanvir feels the team have not handled pressure situations well enough in the last two years, which has prevented them from going all the way.
“My feeling is maybe we panic when it comes to crucial stages,” conceded the all-rounder.
“I still remember a game against Trinidad [when] we dropped too many catches – otherwise we would have won that game. In 2016, we were cruising until the final. We were playing great cricket, but in the final again I think it was panic or a lack of experience. But I think we have the capability and we will try to win it this time somehow. We have to try to give something to Guyana” he told CPLt20 in an interview.
