Pollard says selection headache looms

Trinbago Knight Riders captain Kieron Pollard (left) speaks to Sunil Narine during Friday's match against the Jamaica Tallawahs. PHOTO BY ROGER JACOB.
Trinbago Knight Riders captain Kieron Pollard (left) speaks to Sunil Narine during Friday's match against the Jamaica Tallawahs. PHOTO BY ROGER JACOB.

TRINBAGO Knight Riders (TKR) captain Kieron Pollard said his team may have a bit of a selection headache for their forthcoming matches in the 2019 Hero Caribbean Premier League T20 Tournament.

TKR will try to win their third straight match to start the tournament against St Lucia Zouks at the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair, at noon, today.

On Wednesday, TKR defeated St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in their opening match by 11 runs, before getting past Jamaica Tallawahs by 22 runs on Friday. Both matches were played at the Queen's Park Oval. After today's match TKR will go on the road, before returning home at the end of September.

TKR have had to make some changes at the top of the batting order due to players being injured or on international duty. It was announced on Friday that long-standing captain Dwayne Bravo will miss the entire tournament because of a finger injury and his brother Darren Bravo is questionable for today after suffering a concussion playing for West Indies last weekend in the second Test match against India in Jamaica. Colin Munro, TKR's leading run scorer last year, will join TKR in Jamaica later this week after playing for New Zealand in a T20 series. Tion Webster scored his maiden T20 half century against Tallawahs ending on 66 not out opening the batting.

The TKR selectors may have a difficult time deciding on a starting XI when Darren and Munro are available again after Webster's knock according to Pollard. After the win against Tallawahs Pollard said, "Getting that opportunity with Darren Bravo missing and (Colin) Munro missing I think he (Webster) grabbed it with both hands and he gave us some things to think about."

On playing Darren Sammy and the Zouks today Pollard said, "It is always a good competition, healthy competition. Fortunately I got to captain him (Sammy) last year (and) I think we had something good there. Now he is back at the helm and looking forward to that rivalry again. It is friendly rivalry, we played a lot of cricket together for the West Indies and again as I said we played last year as well."

The TKR skipper wants his team to keep this form. "It is just a matter of going back, looking where we need to improve as a team and continuing to try to keep the momentum. At some point in time, I am saying it now, we might lose momentum and I hope everyone continues to back us, but this is the nature of T20 cricket so if it is with us now we try to roll with it as long as possible."

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"Pollard says selection headache looms"

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