PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC- Captain of Barbados Tridents Kieron Pollard says his team lost the Caribbean Premier League title because of inconsistency at the back end of tournament.
In the final at the Queen’s Park Oval Sunday, Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel dethroned Barbados Tridents with a clinical all-round performance to win by 20 runs. “It was a good season,” declared Pollard.
“It was a bit up and down in the back end but it is T20 cricket and the Red Steel had momentum coming down to the back end of the tournament and they ran with it”.
Opting to bat first, Red Steel were propelled by Pakistani Kamran Akmal who top-scored with 60 while South African opener Cameron Delport hit 50- the pair putting on 102 for the second wicket .
In reply, Tridents fell from a good position of 82 for one as the run rate climbed leaving them needing 26 off the last over.
“I just thought with our bowling effort we wanted to restrict them to around 150-160.
They getting to 178 I think was 20 runs too much but having said that, we had a brilliant start,” said the tridents skipper.
“We got 60 odd in the first ten overs but I think we lost it in the back ten. One of the guys from the top order needed to bat all the way through to the end and we did not have that and we paid the price in the end.”
The Red Steel were almost unstoppable at home, winning six of seven at the Queen’s Park Oval and six of their last eight matches overall to clinch the CPL title for the first time
“We have been here before and these are the days we live for, to play in finals. We knew we were going to come up against a tough Red Steel team with the crowd backing them as well, so we knew we were in for a fight and we just weren’t up to scratch, these things happen,” said Pollard, whose outfit dominated the earlier part of the tournament.
“We don’t want to look for excuses. We were beaten by a better team tonight and they deserve all their congratulations”.
