By Brandon Corlette
Jason Mohammed emerged as the leading run-scorer in the 2020-2021 Regional Super50 tournament, with 327 runs at a brilliant average of 81.75 with one century and one half-century. Mohammed’s Regional record has been supreme, hence his presence in the West Indies ODI team.
Responding to a question posed by this daily publication, Captain Pollard disclosed that Mohammed will play a similar role to Roston Chase, who is ruled out of this ODI series owing to an injury from which he is recovering.
The 34-year-old Mohammed failed to score a half-century since April 2017 but had the opportunity to bat on 22 more instances for West Indies in ODIs. “We wanted him to play the same role as Chase played for us in ODI cricket recently, being able to bat in the top order once needed, and being able to bowl a couple overs for us. Yes, he failed last night (first ODI), and he did not get enough opportunities in the Sri Lanka series,” Pollard said.
The West Indies captain added: “He was the top Super50 batsman. We tend to speak about getting guys from our system into the team, but when we do it and see it does not work for a couple games, we start to question certain things.”
Mohammed’s last 10 scores when he had an opportunity to bat for West Indies at the ODI level were: 02, 08, 13*, 17, 11, 17, 12, 10, 00, and 01. His bowling has been good, he being the leading wicket-taker in the Sri Lanka series earlier this year. In his last seven matches, he picked up eight wickets for the West Indies. Those eight wickets are all Mohammed has alongside his name in ODIs.
Overall, Mohammed played 35 ODIs and batted 30 times, scoring 619 runs. Despite his supreme performances at the regional level, he has failed to dominate at the International level, averaging 22.1 with the bat with four half-centuries.
The level-headed batsman will look to come good if given an opportunity in the remainder of the matches. West Indies and Australia will return to the same venue today (Thursday, July 22) for the second CG Insurance ODI. The first ball is 14:30h. (GTimes)