CENTURION, South Africa, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago captain Denesh Ramdin says failure to execute and a lack of mental preparation are the reasons his team was knocked out at the qualifying stage of the champion’s league in South Africa.
The Red Force succumbed by six wickets to English County side Yorkshire at Supersport Park on Wednesday.
The defeat appeared to have stunned the Trinidadians who were left to play an inconsequential game against Sri Lankan champions Uva before returning home.
“We didn’t execute our plans as we wanted to. We lost early wickets and then we tried to get a partnership (going), but we didn’t execute as well come the latter stages either”, said Ramdin. “We should have prepared better mentally coming to South Africa, where the bounce is different”.
T&T went all the way to the final in the inaugural edition in 2009 before losing to New South Wales.
Last year, they were forced to qualify for the main stage, where they narrowly missed securing a spot in the semi-finals.
“We started poorly with the bat and the bowlers were too inconsistent. Coach David Williams was constantly telling the guys to pitch the ball up but they did not do that and you see the result” said manager Omar Khan.
“We kept telling them that the team that makes the least mistakes on the day will win the match and they saw that today.”
Yorkshire, chasing a winning target of 149, was reeling on 51 for four at one stage.
However a lack of depth in the Trinidad bowling allowed the game to slip away as Gary Balance with an aggressive 64 led Yorkshire to their second win in the three team qualifying pool.
“The players were very sad and reflective after the loss” said Khan.
“We have to take a collective responsibility for this loss and the guys know that they played well below what was expected”.
The Trinidad team which lost to Yorkshire included five members of the West Indies squad which defeated Sri Lanka on Sunday to win the ICC Twenty/20 world cup for the first time.
