Sinclair grateful for CPL opportunity to showcase his skills globally

Sep 05, 2020 Sports

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By Sean Devers

At age 20, Berbice all-rounder Kevin Sinclair has represented Rose Hall Town, Berbice, the West Indies emerging players and most recently, the Guyana Amazon Warriors. Sinclair is fast becoming popular for his summersault celebrations when he claims a wicket.

The hyperactive Sinclair, with a smile as broad as the Berbice River, had the best economy rate among all bowlers in last November’s Colonial Medical Life Super 50 Cup as the West Indies emerging players won the title in their debut tournament by beating the host Trinidad and Tobago in the final.
Sinclair performed well with both bat and ball in his debut senior Regional Tournament.
The cousin of former Guyana fast bowler Kevin Darlington, Sinclair made an inauspicious start to his first class career earlier this year.
In six matches he failed to contribute any outstanding performances; taking 12 wickets and making just 113 runs.
Sinclair, who seems more comfortable bowling the white ball, says he’s delighted to be involved in the CPL.
The Talented Sinclair, the only new player to be contracted by the Amazon Warriors, made an impacting start to his CPL T20 career, when on the debut, he opened the bowling and the batting against the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots on August 30th and recorded the impressive figures of four overs, one maiden, nine runs one wicket.
“It feels really good after watching it from the outside and now being able to be a part of it (CPL), it’s fantastic and I’m confident of doing well in the rest of the tournament.
I’m just looking to stick to the basics and work hard,” informed Sinclair, who had not played any Cricket since February before this tournament.
“I do like all formats of the game and will say I’m a batting all-rounder I just have to balance it with the ball,” said Sinclair, whose favorite manner of dismissing a batsman is lbw while he enjoys straight driving.
After Thursday night’s final preliminary-round game against defending Champions Barbados Tridents, Sinclair had played four matches in which he bowled 84 balls, taking five wickets and conceded just 61 runs at an economy rate of 3.9, the best in the Tournament.
However, with the bat he could only manage eight runs from two innings with a top score of five.
“I feel really good about that, it was another opportunity for me to showcase my talent. I did not get the results with the bat. But with the ball I was outstanding.
I was grateful to have the opportunity to showcase my skills to a global audience,” said Sinclair who lives in Angoy’s Avenue in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Sinclair disclosed that he has learned a lot already in this Tournament.
“I learnt a lot in terms of consistency in bowling in a particular area, while in the batting department, rotating the strike has got to be right up there while putting away the bad balls is also very important. I have learnt a lot of different things so far working with the coaches and the foreign players like Skipper Chris Green, Ross Taylor and Imran Tahir along with the local players as well,” informed the off-spinner who has extracted prodigious turn from the Trinidad tracks.
The Warriors have reached the finals five times in the previous seven tournaments since the CPL was inaugurated in 2013 but has never won the coveted title.
Last year they played on unbeaten for 11 matches before finishing runners-up to Barbados in the final after losing their last match.
However, Sinclair, who along with fellow Guyanese left-arm spinner Ashmead Nedd, are the under-23 players in the squad, is confident of winning the title in his first season in this format like he did with the West Indies emerging players in Regional Super 50 last year.
The Warriors will look to break that Jinx this season by winning their first title but they will know that they still have a semi-final to play next Tuesday.
“Yes I am confident and the guys are also confident of going all the way this year now that we have reached the semi-finals after a tough start. I think we are peaking at the right time.
The support we have gotten over the years speaks for itself, everyone is supporting us back home and that support is driving us again this year and I’m confident that we will pull it off this year,” said Sinclair.
Sinclair says first class cricket and playing in the CPL is a big difference for him.
“The first class tournament is a mixture of local and Caribbean players and gives you time to come back from a mistake but the CPL is very fast-paced and has stars from around the globe and you can learn more from them. Not only from our team. Most of the guys are open for questions and if you’re willing to learn you will improve,” Sinclair concluded.

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