Coach — TT the team to beat in Airtel Twenty20By KERN RAMLOCHAN Saturday, October 17 2009
COACH of the Trinidad and Tobago cricket team, Kelvin Williams believes that the national team has established themselves as the team to beat in the current Airtel Champions League Twenty20 tournament in India.
Trinidad and Tobago ended the New South Wales Blues unbeaten run in the tournament with a sensational four-wicket victory at the Rajiv Ghandi Stadium in Hyderabad. The team’s next match is tomorrow against Diamond Eagles but have already been assured of a place in the semi-finals.
“I believe that now we are the team to beat after overcoming a formidable New South Wales team. The other unbeaten team in the tournament is Cape Cobras of South Africa and we want to finish this tournament unbeaten. The guys are up for it and they are a tremendous group of guys who will get the job done,” said Williams from India yesterday.
A powerful innings of 54 runs off 18 balls by Kieron Pollard powered the national team to a spectacular win against tournament favourites New South Wales Blues.
“The performance of the team left me speechless. We performed brilliantly and it was a good team effort again to beat New South Wales. They batted first and made 170 for four and everybody thought that we would chase that score successfully. We have our targets set and we knew that the score was attainable,” said Williams.
The Trinidad and Tobago manager was full of praise for Pollard and Sherwin Ganga whose performances enabled the national team to complete the thrilling victory yesterday.
“Polly could do many things with the bat and we have a special role for him in the team. We like to hold him back for the final surge like this. I don’t want to have Pollard batting 12 or 13 overs. He played really well coming in at the lower end of the innings and hitting the ball,” said Williams.
He added “Sherwin does not get the credit he deserve for the performances he has put in with the team. New South Wales were out of the blocks quickly and we did not know what hit us in the first six overs. But Sherwin was the key for us in this match. He pulled it back a bit bringing the run rate down to 6.5 and ensured that we did not lose it. Sherwin is a valuable member of this team and has been doing it game in and out for us.”
Trinidad and Tobago will leave for Bangalore today before having a training session under lights at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in preparation for the match against Diamond Eagles tomorrow.
