Pollard: We did not adjust to conditions

CAPTAIN of the Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) Kieron Pollard, believes his team did not adjust their batting strategy on the slow wicket in the 2019 Hero Caribbean Premier League T20 Tournament, on Wednesday night.

The TKR batsmen struggled and could only post 134/8 in 20 overs at the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair against Barbados Tridents. In response, Tridents scored 135/3 in 19.4 overs to prevail by seven wickets. It was TKR's second loss at home this week after losing to Guyana Amazon Warriors by 19 runs, on Monday.

After the match, Pollard said his bowlers fought hard to push Tridents to the final over.

"We always look for the positives and you always look to improve on the negatives. Again, getting them to face 19.4 overs I think the bowlers did fantastically well," Pollard said.

Despite the wicket being difficult to bat on, Pollard said they did not make enough runs. "Batting first if we had put up 150, 160 it would have been a little more challenging. We did not do that, we did not get over the line (but) we crack on. The good thing as I said we have another opportunity."

TKR can still finish in the top two with a victory over Amazon Warriors at Providence Stadium in Guyana at 8 pm today.

Pollard said TKR should have adapted to the slow wicket saying, "All of us in the Caribbean or Caribbean players are attacking by nature, so it is something that we had to adjust and we did not adjust as quickly as we should have but having said that these things happen. We are out there, we are trying our best to try and get that win and as I said it is just a matter of cracking on...we have another opportunity to win one more game and still qualify for the top two."

Tridents ended the preliminary phase with two wins. Prior to the win over TKR, Tridents defeated St Lucia Zouks by 24 runs at Kensington Oval in Barbados, on Sunday. Wednesday's man of the match Harry Gurney, who took 2/14 in four overs, said the Tridents are clicking at the right time. "It sounds like a bit of a cliche, but in these T20 competitions momentum is really important and we seemed to have found some. It is exciting and we back ourselves against anyone, but let's see what happens."

Only Lendl Simmons, who also did not bat with his usual fluency, had an impact with his knock of 60 from 45 deliveries. Jimmy Neesham, who has not batted often, was promoted to open the batting. The experiment failed as he was the first to be dismissed for one with just four on the board.

Simmons and Munro put on 52 for the second wicket, but the Tridents bowlers kept the scoring rate down. After Munro fell for 23 in the ninth over, TKR lost wickets regularly as only Simmons and Pollard (20 off 16) got to 20.

Fast bowler Gurney was the top bowler for Tridents with 2/14 in four overs, fellow lef-armer, spinner Shakib Al Hasan grabbed 2/25 in four overs and the tournament's leading wicket-taker, leg-spinner Hayden Walsh snatched 2/34 in four.

In reply, a 54-run opening partnership between Johnson Charles and Alex Hales put the Tridents in a comfortable position. After losing Hales for 33 and Al Hasan for 13, Charles brought up his 50 and also steered Tridents past 100 in the 15th over.

Charles fell for 55 off 47 balls in the 16th over when he was bowled by Chris Jordan to leave Tridents on 110/3 in the 16th over. It gave TKR a glimmer of hope, but Tridents only needed six runs an over. Tridents made the match more exciting than it needed to be getting home with two balls to spare with Ashley Nurse and JP Duminy ending unbeaten on ten and 18 respectively.

Tridents moved into second place and TKR dropped to fourth.

Scoreboard

TRINBAGO KNIGHT RIDERS VS BARBADOS TRIDENTS

TKR inns

J Neesham c&b Al Hasan*1

L Simmons b Al Hasan*60

C Munro c Charles b Walsh*23

DM Bravo b Walsh*6

K Pollard c Holder b Gurney*20

D Ramdin LBW b Gurney*18

J Searles run out (Walsh)*0

M Deyal c Carter b Reifer*1

C Jordan not out*2

K Pierre not out*0

EXTRAS (LB1, W2)*3

Total for eight wickets (20 overs)*134

Did not bat: A Khan

Fall of wickets: 4; 56; 74; 104; 122; 122; 124; 133.

BOWLING: Al Hasan 4-0-25-2 (W1); Holder 3-0-21-0 (W1); Gurney 4-0-14-2; Duminy 1-0-15-0; Walsh 4-0-34-2; Reifer 4-0-24-1.

Tridents inns:

J Charles b Jordan*55

A Hales c Searles b Deyal*33

S Al Hasan c Ramdin b Neesham*13

JP Duminy not out*18

A Nurse not out*10

EXTRAS (LB1, W5)*6

Total for three wickets (19.4 overs)*135

Did not bat: J Carter, J Greaves, R Reifer, J Holder, H Walsh, H Gurney.

Fall of wickets: 54; 89; 110.

BOWLING: Pierre 4-0-18-0; Khan 3-0-23-0; Jordan 4-0-29-1 (W1); Neesham 3-0-26-1 (W2); Deyal 2-0-17-1 (W1); Pollard 2.4-0-17-0 (W1); Munro 1-0-4-0.

Result: Tridents won by seven wickets.

Man of the Match: Harry Gurney (Barbados Tridents)

STANDINGS (Before last night's Tallawahs-Amazon Warriors match)

Team*P*W*L*NR*Pts*NRR

Amazon Warriors*8*8*0*0*16*1.598

Tridents*10*5*5*0*10*0.518

Patriots*10*5*5*0*10*-0.155

Knight Riders*9*4*4*1*9*0.053

Zouks*10*3*6*1*7*-0.74

Tallawahs*9*2*7*0*4*-1.205