NO EXCUSESRed Steel coach Greenidge wants home advantage to pay offTrinidad and Tobago Red Steel head coach Gordon Greenidge says he is not going to make any excuses for his team’s poor showing in their first two matches in the Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 and is hoping for better returns in their home games starting tomorrow night.
The Red Steel lost to the Guyana Amazon Warriors in their tournament opener last week before being blown away by the Barbados Tridents over the weekend.
With five matches to play in the preliminary round of the competition, the Red Steel need to turn their fortunes around if they are to have any chance of making the semi-finals.
They tackle the Jamaica Tallawahs at Queen’s Park Oval tomorrow night in the first of three home matches and Greenidge says the turnaround must start there.
He said: “No excuses. We had matches to play. We had opportunities. We just did not play well enough to win.
“We are looking forward to better things obviously. So far we have not played as well as we should and know we could but we have three home matches so we need to make use of the match here like the other teams have done.
“Hopefully, come Wednesday we can put that first win under our belts and move on to Friday and Sunday.
“Trinidad have performed exceptionally over the years in T20 games. As a matter of fact, Trinidad in the last eight years or so has been perhaps the mainstay in the regional cricket in the Caribbean. The players are not new to this,” he added.
The coach also noted that the players have been getting along and gelling together really well and are eager to get their first win of the campaign.
“Once you get that first win under your belt, things will start to happen. We hope we can get that win on Wednesday. It has to happen on Wednesday, we can’t wait for it to happen on Friday.
“There is no looking back now. There are no second chances. Each match now is like a final to us and we need to win the next three matches at least,” the coach insisted.
Asked about what needs to be done to turn things around for the franchise, Greenidge did not discount making changes.
“The top order, the middle order...it is all concerns at the moment. We need to see if a change or shuffle around can make the difference. We need to find out if the guys are happy and contented in the position they are in and also the positions they may have to occupy seeing that things have not gone according to plan.
“I think we have not batted well which is obvious. We have not scored sufficient runs.
“In the first match, we should have done better but we didn’t. The second match, we lost our way completely and we did not bat for 20 overs which is a major disappointment. As a matter of fact, the whole match lasted only 20 overs. That is not acceptable in a situation like this.
“We should have done better. We know we can do better,” he added.
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