PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Captain Kieron Pollard has pointed to inconsistency as the main reason behind Trinbago Knight Riders’ disappointing performance in the just-concluded Caribbean Premier League.
TKR entered the T20 domestic tournament as two-time reigning champions but missed out on a place in the final after enduring a run of poor form at the back end of the preliminary phase, heading into the playoffs.
They won their first four matches but then shockingly lost five of their last six games in a winless streak.
“I thought our performance in the last game really summed up our tournament. It was a bit up-and-down, for us a bit of inconsistencies in all aspects of our cricket [in the] three departments and I don’t think we deserved to be in the final,” Pollard told i95FM Sports here.
“At the end of the day, you can’t fault the effort of the guys, in terms of training and preparation but some things are just not meant to be and I think that getting those three titles was one of them.
“All in all, I think guys would have taken a lot from this campaign and hopefully come the next campaign, try to right the wrongs that actually took place.”
TKR finished fourth in the standings on nine points to qualify for the playoffs and defeated third-placed St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the first eliminator to advance to the semi-final.
However, they failed to chase down a modest 161 set by eventual champions Barbados Tridents in the semi-final in front of their home crowd at the Brian Lara Stadium to lose by 12 runs, and miss out on a place in the final against unbeaten Guyana Amazon Warriors.
Pollard conceded that TKR had failed to put together the complete game in that crucial fixture.
“We can look at aspects of our bowling at the back end, we can look at the soft dismissals that we had,” the newly-appointed West Indies white-ball skipper explained.
“There are a lot of things that compromise an entire game of T20 cricket, not just one incident, and it was a perfect example of us not being consistent enough and … not being able to execute at the back end which caused our demise. As I said before, dropping easy catches in a semi-final is also not on.”
Labelled pre-tournament favourites, TKR suffered a major setback before the start of their campaign when they lost influential captain Dwayne Bravo to injury.
Pollard, who replaced him, said his quality and experience was definitely missed throughout.
“He’s been getting a lot of flak [in the past] for bowling in the death but it goes to show the type of impact and magnitude he can have in any team,” Pollard pointed out.
“He has done it all over the world and we as a TKR franchise certainly missed his expertise in the back [end] there and his expertise throughout the entire tournament.
“We need to continue to believe in players when we have them on the park rather than just sort of ridicule them when things don’t go right.”