(Trinidad Express) With their season in danger of ending early, Antigua and Barbuda Falcons captain Chris Green is urging his players to produce their best at the last time of asking.
The fifth-placed Falcons enter this week of Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League action needing wins against the Trinbago Knight Riders on Thursday and the Guyana Amazon Warriors on Saturday to maintain an outside chance of making the playoffs.
Sunday night in St Lucia, they went down by 26 runs to the St Lucia Falcons.
But speaking about this week’s assignments Green, said Sunday: “We can take a lot of confidence out of that (win against TKR in Antigua); they’re a really good team… “We still haven’t played our best cricket yet this tournament. We’ve showed glimpses of what we can do but too many dropped catches, too many soft dismissals and some poor bowling at times as well have given the opposition the upper hand when for the most part, we’ve been doing pretty well, but we’ll keep fighting.”
The Falcons skipper added: “Two games to go, we’ve gotta win both, we’ve gotta play our best cricket against two sides that have been playing really good cricket, and we know the contest is going to be hard away but I believe we can do it.” Meanwhile, winning captain Sunday, Faf Du Plessis, was pleased with the work of his spinners, Player-of-the-Match Khary Pierre in particular.
“Really proud of our effort,” Du PLessis began. “The wicket surprised us today with the amount of spin that it took. You don’t normally see a lot of spin in this wicket but I thought we didn’t bat great. I thought we could have been a little bit better with the bat but then an innings like that from David Wiese got us to a score where we felt like we are certainly in the game and then obviously the way that we started in the (bowling) Powerplay was excellent. KP (Khary Pierre) coming in and dominating, he’s done really well for us. He’ obviously thrown a pretty big statement out there now..don’t leave me out of the team again.”
Earlier, the Falcons won the toss and chose to insert the Kings, but the home side’s top order started confidently with the bat in hand. Johnson Charles hit five boundaries for his 25, and Ackeem Auguste followed suit with a well made 35 off 28 deliveries after Du Plessis fell to Green for 14 at the end of the fifth over.
Green was the pick of the bowlers for the Falcons, the Australian’s canny off-breaks seeing him snare four top order wickets as the Kings tried to wrestle the initiative and set a commanding target. David Wiese belted four sixes at the close to see the Kings set 152 for nine off their 20 overs.
The Falcons top order struggled and were 28 for five at the end of the Powerplay and it looked as if they were in danger of a heavy defeat. Shamar Springer and skipper Green then rebuilt the innings by working the ball into the gaps, albeit the lack of boundaries meant that the Kings were never really put under any pressure defending their total.
Springer was run out just as the harder yards were done and it was time to open the shoulders and pose a late charge, and when Green fell caught by Seifert off Noor Ahmad for 48 off 37 deliveries, the match drifted away for good.
Pierre was awarded the Player-of-the-Match award for bagging three for 24 with his wily slow left-arm stuff, his three quick wickets of Kofi James, Sam Billings and Jahmar Hamilton was a top order gut punch that the Falcons failed to recover from. The Kings moved to second place in the table, Barbados Royals ahead of them on net run rate and with a game in hand.
Summarised scores:
ST LUCIA KINGS 152-8 in 20 overs (David Wiese 43 n.o., Ackeem Auguste 35, Johnson Charles 253; Chris Green 4/22, Shamar Springer 3/19). vs ANTIGUA & BARBUDA FALCONS 126-8, 20 overs (Chris Green 48, Shamar Springer 23, Roshon Primus 17 n.o,; Khary Pierre 3/24, Noor Ahmad 2/13).
—Kings won by 26 runs.
