Self-belief still there, says Stars skipper Pollard

St Lucia Stars captain Kieron Pollard

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Embattled St Lucia Stars captain Kieron Pollard has insisted his struggling side still possess the self belief to turn around their ill-fated campaign in the Caribbean Premier League.

Starts lost their third game in a row on Tuesday night at Sabina Park when they went down by six wickets to unbeaten hosts Jamaica Tallawahs.

The defeat was the 14th on the trot for Stars dating back to the 2016 season, after also going winless last season.

“I’ve played in enough franchises. I’ve played in a franchise where everyone thought we were dead and we came back and won the tournament,” Pollard said following the contest.

“So for me in my mind, the belief is still there and in the mind of the guys, the belief is still there. Until we are mathematically out of this tournament we will continue to fight and we will continue to fight hard.”

Stars suffered a 100-run crushing by reigning champions Trinbago Knight Riders on the opening night of the tournament in Port of Spain a week ago, before also losing to Guyana Amazon Warriors by three runs in Georgetown three days later.

Last night at Sabina Park, they put up a challenging 175 batting first but then failed to defend it, and Pollard pointed that errors in the field had been to their undoing. “It’s the nature of the game. In order to win games and to win championships you have to concentrate for 40 overs and we haven’t been doing that,” Pollard explained.

“Having said that batting first on that pitch everyone thought it was a bad decision but I think 175 was always going to be a challenging total.

“We brought it right down to the end and taking a couple of our catches and bowling a couple more tight overs and it could have been a different ball game.”

Stars take on TKR again tonight in Gros Islet before clashing with 2014 champions Barbados Tridents at the same venue the following night.