Desert Vipers confident of GSL glory despite Green blow

Dubai, UAE – Desert Vipers head coach Azhar Mah­mood has is­sued a de­fi­ant ral­ly­ing cry, in­sist­ing his side can con­quer the Exxon­Mo­bil Guyana Glob­al Su­per League even af­ter be­ing dealt a ma­jor blow with the loss of cap­tain Chris Green.

The off-spin­ning all-rounder has been ruled out of the five-team Twen­ty20 show­down, set for Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in late Ju­ly and ear­ly Au­gust, af­ter suf­fer­ing a hand in­jury while rep­re­sent­ing Eng­lish coun­ty side Lan­cashire ear­li­er this month.

Speak­ing on the Vipers Voic­es pod­cast, Mah­mood ad­mit­ted the set­back was sig­nif­i­cant but backed his squad to adapt and over­come.

“It is def­i­nite­ly a big blow as he was our skip­per as well as be­ing a cru­cial play­er for us who bats at num­ber sev­en, along with his off-spin, plus he is a gun field­er too,” said Mah­mood.

“These things hap­pen in crick­et, and you need to con­trol the con­trol­lables. It’s a shame he won’t be with us, but we are a pro­fes­sion­al side. In mod­ern-day T20, play­ers gel quick­ly; it’s not like the old days when new faces need­ed time to set­tle. Who­ev­er re­places him will fit right in.”

A re­place­ment for Green will be an­nounced in due course.

Mah­mood, who has pre­vi­ous­ly served as head coach of the Pak­istan men’s na­tion­al team and Is­lam­abad Unit­ed in the PSL, high­light­ed the im­por­tance of the Vipers’ West In­di­an con­tin­gent, which in­cludes left-arm seam­er Ra­mon Sim­monds, spin­ner Khary Pierre, bat­ting all-rounder Kyle May­ers, and teenag­er Zachary Carter, along­side as­sis­tant coach Shane Dowrich, a for­mer West In­dies wick­et­keep­er.

“They know the con­di­tions and the cul­ture bet­ter than us. Their lo­cal knowl­edge and in­sights will be vi­tal both on and off the field. Hav­ing peo­ple from that en­vi­ron­ment who can share that knowl­edge is al­ways handy,” he said.

With pow­er­hous­es like hold­ers Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, San Fran­cis­co Uni­corns, La­hore Qa­lan­dars, and Perth Scorchers in the fray, Mah­mood ac­knowl­edged the chal­lenge but backed his squad’s hunger over star pow­er.

“Big names can­not win you tour­na­ments. Our play­ers can ex­e­cute plans, gel to­geth­er, and they have a hunger that can win tour­na­ments. I see hun­gry play­ers in our line-up who want to win, just like we did in the ILT20 this year. We want to show how good we are, even with­out our full re­sources.

“Yes, it might be tough, and there will be chal­lenges. But we need to be­lieve we are go­ing there to win—not to make up the num­bers.”

CMC