GROS ISLET, St Lucia, CMC – Captain of the St. Lucia Zouks Darren Sammy has blamed poor fielding and failure to execute the game plan as the reasons for his team’s three-wicket defeat to Trinbago Knight Riders in the 25th game of the Caribbean Premier League at the Darren Sammy National Stadium on Tuesday.
Chasing 167, Knight Riders crashed to 63 for five wickets inside the first 10 overs and appeared to be headed for a defeat before a merciless unbeaten 73 from 35 balls by Umar Akmal stole the match from Zouks.
Zouks, who surged on the points table after three back-to-back wins, have now lost their third place to the Knight Riders heading into the final league matches in Florida.
“Halfway through the match, we were pretty happy with the total and confident we could have got it home. I don’t think we executed our plans as well as we did in the last three games, but Umar played well,” said Sammy.
“We were beaten by a blinder of an innings. Catches win matches and we dropped three. That was tough. We are still in with a chance. We play Jamaica twice in Florida. We are still in a good space and will press forward. Would have been nice to make it four out of four.”
Knight Riders were imploding on 41 for four and 65 for five before Akmal launched a ruthless attack on the bowlers hitting three fours and seven sixes which included three in a row of Jerome Taylor.
“Brilliant comeback. Congrats to Umar Akmal, words can’t explain that innings. 65 for 5, we had messed it up earlier,” said Bravo, who also explained why Sunil Narine was not allowed to bowl his four overs.
“You would not want your best bowler [Narine] to bowl only three overs, but the game plan that time was to bowl full and wide with the seamers.”
