Skipper Pollard bemoans batting woes as TKR beaten again

TRINBAGO KNIGHT Riders (TKR) captain Kieron Pollard hopes their next Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) match, against the Guyana Amazon Warriors, in front a home crowd at the Queen’s Park Oval, St Clair on Tuesday can provide the spark needed to rebound from their recent pair of defeats.

TKR lost their second consecutive match, by 34 runs, against Jamaica Tallawahs at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in Gros Islet, St Lucia on Saturday. This comes after Wednesday’s 80-run defeat, via the Duckworth-Lewis system, against Barbados Royals.

After four matches, the four-time CPL winners have one win, two losses and a no result.

Once again, TKR’s bolstered batting line-up, which includes big-hitters Pollard, West Indies white ball captain Nicholas Pooran, Jamaican all-rounder Andre Russell and Kiwis Colin Munro and Tim Seifert, could not get the TT franchise over the line.

Pollard remains optimistic the team’s tide may change in front of the home fans on Tuesday.

“It’s disappointing to lose any cricket match but we still have to look at areas where you need to improve and look to do things differently as a team. We’re going into a home leg, have four home games and hope to have the crowd behind us and things like that.

“Let’s look at the positive route. The guys have something to talk about over the next couple days and let’s see what happens after that,” he said in the post-match interview on Saturday.

Sent in to bat, the Tallawahs struggled to get going and stood at a shaky 49/3 after 10 overs as pacers Ravi Rampaul and Shaaron Lewis made early breakthroughs.

At 31/3, Tallawahs skipper Rovman Powell (67) and Raymon Reifer (28) rescued the innings to carry them to 121/4 after 16.overs before the latter was caught by South African Daryn Dupavillion off Sunil Narine’s off-breaks.

Tallwahs continued to press on and Pakistan’s Imad Wasim added a crucial 21 runs from 12 balls to carry them to 153/7 after 20 overs.

TKR pacers Ravi Rampaul (3/40) was their best bowler alongside Narine (2/11). Lewis (1/12) and Dupavillion (1/23) were also among the wickets.

In their turn at the crease, TKR opener Sunil Narine’s poor form with the bat continued as he was bowled, without scoring, by Pakistani pacer Mohammad Amir in the third ball of the first over.

Munro joined Tion Webster in the middle and the pair built a 25-run partnership. Webster however, soon perished for five runs. Seifert (15) joined his countryman and the duo added 17 to the score but the former was brilliantly stumped by Amir Jangoo off off-spinner Chris Green.

Pooran, also yet to fire in his debut season for TKR, scored 13 but had his middle stump uprooted by Amir. Russell (17) hit two quick sixes in his cameo knock while Pollard scored six.

Khary Pierre finished unbeaten on 15 while Dupavillion scord seven not out in his first CPLT20 match.

The Pakistani duo of Amir (2/15) and left-arm spinner Wasim (2/20) topped the bowling for Tallawahs while Migael Pretorious (1/17), Joshua James (1/19) and Green (1/38) also chipped in. Wasim was adjudged Man of the Match.

On his team’s woeful batting, Pollard said change is inevitable.

“The last couple games we haven’t done well with the bat so that’s some conversations that need to be had in terms of how we go about and pace our innings, and the sort of intent that we want to go out in the game with."

Concerning the team's bowling, Pollard mentioned, “The wicket was helpful to the (TKR) bowlers in the first ten overs. I thought they were about 20 to 25 runs a bit too much on the back end. That boiled down to poor execution.

“A total of 125 to 130 to chase on that track should have been gettable but we sort of let them get away in the back end a bit.”

Meanwhile, Powell was pleased to secure the franchise’s first win in eight matches against TKR and credited his troops.

“In all three aspects (batting, bowling, fielding) of the game the guys played well. We talked about having not beaten TKR for such a long time and we wanted to do that. We came out the powerplay a little bit shaky but we got stuck in and the guys bowled really well.

“I know Sunil is always a threat and once you keep him out of the game, then you’re going to score runs and I think I did that today,” he said.

The win for Tallawahs saw them bounce back from a loss against St Lucia Kings on Wednesday. The Jamaica franchise (six points) is now second on the standings behind leaders Barbados Royals.

Matches continue at the same venue on Sunday with a top of the table clash between Tallawahs up against Barbados Royals from 10 am (TT time). At 7 pm, defending champions St Kitts and Nevis Patriots meet hosts St Lucia Kings.

Scores:

TALLAWAHS 153-7 (20 overs) - Rovman Powell 67, Raymon Reifer 28, Imad Wasim 21; Ravi Rampaul 3-40, Sunil Narine 2-11 vs KNIGHT RIDERS 119-8 (20 overs) - Colin Munro 29; Mohammad Amir 2-15, Imad Wasim 2-20. Tallawahs won by 34 runs. Man of the Match: Imad Wasim (Tallawahs).