Shane Brooks, the Jamaica senior women’s cricket head coach, says the “never-say-never mentality” of the team was the driving force behind the remarkable CG United Super50 Cup triumph in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The Jamaican women entered Saturday’s final round of matches in fifth place with nine points, but defeated Leeward Islands and gained valuable bonus points to leapfrog into top position.

Jamaica ended with 21 points, just ahead of Windward Islands (20), Guyana (20), and Trinidad and Tobago (19). Barbados, on 13 points, and Leeward Islands (seven) rounded out the six-team table.

Brooks, who along with the players, returned to Jamaica on Monday, reflected on the hallmark of their success.

“The main thing that stood out [during the tournament] is the resilience of the team. These players have a never-say-never mentality and belief in themselves,” the coach told the Jamaica Observer.

“The ladies are elated after coming from behind to win the 50-over competition… they were very resilient and weathered the storm. We’re always looking for solutions regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.

“We always lean on each other and these girls are winners, they are accustomed to winning and they know that once they pull together, [execute] the team plans and support the coach’s vision they will always be victors,” he said.

“The players always believed — the one thing that this team doesn’t lack is belief. They believe in their abilities and they believe in their skills, and there was no moment in time that we believed that we could not have won the competition, based on the structure of the competition,” Brooks added.

He noted that the chance to accrue bonus points, with restricting opponents scoring, claiming wickets, and achieving bowling and batting milestones always gave his experienced team hope.

“There was always the possibility of getting 12 to 15 bonus points from each game,” he explained.

The Jamaicans last lifted the Super50 Cup in 2024, when they completed the regional double by also winning the Twenty20 (T20) tournament.

Largely due to limited pre-tournament preparation, it was a slow start for the Jamaicans this season — they were fifth in the T20 competition prior to the Super50 Cup.

But by the time they switched from the T20 to the 50-over format they were starting to hit their straps.

“We have won five titles in the past five years. This one means as much as all the others but this campaign we had a shorter time to prepare the team. We were not as sharp as we would have liked but the duration of the tournaments allowed us to get better each passing day, so the performances improved.

“We weren’t playing well and we didn’t play our best game [during the tournament] but every game we played we kept on improving,” Brooks, who is also coach of the Jamaica Under-19 women’s team, recalled.

While not singling out anyone for individual performances, Brooks said he was pleased with the way in which the senior players supported their captain.

“Another thing that stood out is the improvement from our Captain Rashada Williams. She is a young captain — she is in her second year — and winning her first title [as captain]. The team really rallied around her, and she showed growth in her ability to think on her feet and her ability to work with the team plans. The senior players like Stafanie Taylor, Chedean Nation, Vanessa Watts, [and others] stood by her and believed in her leadership,” he said.

Brooks told the Observer that a lot of the team’s success was inspired by the late former women’s cricketer and administrator Dorothy Hobson, who passed away last month.

“What the ladies have stressed on about Ms Hobson is that she was always a disciplinarian. She always believed in discipline, she always believed in country first, and the girls speak of this on numerous times. She believed in giving everything on the field, and these principles the girls took from her — giving everything that you have,” he said.

— Sanjay Myers

BROOKS…. they believe in their abilities and they believe in their skills, and there was no moment in time that we believed that we could not have won the competition

Rashada Williams, Jamaica senior women’s cricket captain (Photo: CWI Media)