Captain of the Red Steel Dwayne Bravo was hard on his men after their four-wicket loss to Barbados Tridents in their Limacol Caribbean Premier League T20 clash at Kensington Oval in Barbados on Saturday night.
The Red Steel batting first on winning the toss crashed to 52 all out and although pacer Fidel Edwards grabbed 5/22 to trouble the home team, they reached their target of 53 for six after eight overs to claim the points.
Brava speaking on the second successive defeat for his side said :”We are embarrassing our fans out there and I feel for them. We are taking too long to understand what is required to win matches and our players have to think deep and hard and come out of this.”
With the pitch offering generous bounce and turn Bangladeshi Shakib Al Hasan grabbed a world record of six wickets for six runs to rout the Red Steel. According to Bravo the batsmen needed to apply themselves better to the task.
“We had information coming from the middle all the time and those who went out there should have understood what the pitch was offering and play accordingly. Had we batted out the overs, who knows what could have been the end result.”
Looking ahead to the next three games will be in Trinidad and Tobago, the skipper said :”We know that so far we have let down the fans but we are looking forward to them showing up at the Oval and supporting us. All the away teams have lost so far in the tournament, so it is important that we win the games at home so that we can stand a good chance of making the play-offs.
“The pitch at the Oval is expected to be better for T20 cricket than the one here and hopefully our batters can put their heads down and come to the party. In this game we sorted out the problem of the slow start that we had in the first game but then the middle fell apart. We have a good team but I need the players to take responsibility for what has transpired so far and show their hands. They need to fight hard for this team to come back from the two defeats and we are looking forward to much improvement.”
The team flew into T&T at 10am yesterday morning and will have a batting session only at the Queen’s Park Oval this evening after settling at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain. Today, they are expected to have another two sessions and this will be followed by a final intense practice session tomorrow.
Bravo ended by saying: “We want to keep a relaxed atmosphere in the team but at the same time we want to show that intensity that would win us games. We have a very good opportunity playing in front of our own fans over the next three games and we are looking forward to it.” (VM)
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