MOHALI, India, CMC – Head coach Desmond Haynes believes Barbados Tridents have done themselves and the entire Caribbean proud despite their elimination from the ongoing Champions League Twenty20 tournament here.
The Barbados-based outfit – who represented the region after winning the Caribbean Premier League – suffered their third straight defeat against Hobart Hurricanes yesterday at the PCA Stadium, but Haynes said they were not outplayed nor disgraced.
“One thing we demonstrated here in this tournament was to show the world that we are good enough and West Indies cricket is on the up,” Haynes told reporters after the game.
“We showed the people around the world, especially here in India, that we can play and we can play well. Very few people expected us to be as competitive as we have been. I will repeat, that I believe West Indies cricket, especially in this format is pretty strong.”
Barbados suffered close defeats to King’s XI Punjab and South Africa’s Cape Cobras in their first two matches. yesterday they went under by six wickets to Hobart Hurricanes. They will play their final match against Northern Knights of New Zealand tomorrow in Bangalore.
“In the first two games we came up short by about 10 to 20 runs … the wickets for those games the wicket was much better than tonight … I found the ball was holding up a bit in this match, but we didn’t bat well today and that basically cost us the match.”
Haynes said he was extremely impressed by the batting of left-hander Jonathan Carter, the left-hander who made a brilliant 111 not out against the Cape Cobras and followed up with a stroke-filled 42 off 34 balls against the Australians.
He has played for the West Indies A team and has been on the verge of selection to the senior West Indies side for some time.
“When we selected Jonathan for the Barbados Tridents last year we identified him as someone who could keep wicket, bowl a bit of medium-pace and is a very good player of spin,” the legendary former West Indies opener said.
“Back in Barbados he is considered one of the most talented cricketers that we have at home so I was very impressed by the way he handled himself on the big stage. We always wanted him to believe in himself.
“[From] the first game he was ready to get going and this is a very big stage here. He really wanted to do well here…this can be a life-changer.”
Assessing yesterday’s defeat Haynes added: “Losing early wickets in a T20 match is always going to make things difficult …you have to spent time rebuilding and when you look around the game could be gone. Getting bowled out in 20 overs made it difficult, but I believed if we got around 140 runs we could have made a game of it.”
