Vin­ode Mam­chan

There are four T&T play­ers on the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents team, in­clud­ing their cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard, and go­ing in­to their open­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) T20 clash against Red Steel there was a lot of 'ole talk' from both teams.In the end, Pol­lard, Rayad Em­rit, Ravi Ram­paul and Akeal Ho­sein had to eat hum­ble pie, as Red Steel took a com­fort­able sev­en-wick­et vic­to­ry to get their cam­paign on the way at St George's, Grena­da.A fine all-round bowl­ing per­for­mance re­strict­ed the Tri­dents to 124 for six off their 20 overs and New Zealand's Ross Tay­lor then gave a les­son in sen­si­ble bat­ting to take the Red Steel home.

Tay­lor, who is ca­pa­ble of huge hit­ting, came in ear­ly at the fall of Nasir Jamshed's wick­et and guid­ed the in­nings along. He and the at­trac­tive Dar­ren Bra­vo looked the part and in the end it was a walk in the park.Tay­lor played au­then­tic crick­et shots, re­al­is­ing that the run rate was not too steep and Bra­vo was with him run for run. The two weath­ered the ear­ly storm to add 50 runs off 49 balls and then eased in­to the tar­get there­after.The New Zealan­der brought up his half cen­tu­ry off 41 balls with six fours and with the foun­da­tion set, Bra­vo de­cid­ed to thrill the crowd, who left their Sat­ur­day mar­ket to come to view the crick­et. He had some lusty hits that was greet­ed with great cheer as it was clear that the fans here were sup­port­ing the Red Steel.

Tay­lor fell just be­fore the end, leg be­fore to Ram­paul but by then his "Tri­ni" mates were al­ready laugh­ing. Tay­lor made 62 off 51 balls with five fours and a six. His as­so­ci­a­tion with Bra­vo was worth 95 runs in 12.3 overs. When the vic­to­ry came, Bra­vo was un­beat­en on 54 off 42 balls with three fours and three six­es. The vic­to­ry avenged the four-wick­et loss the Red Steel suf­fered at the hands of the Tri­dents in the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment last year.Ear­li­er, cap­tain Dwayne Bra­vo won the toss and de­cid­ed to have first use of the pitch, as he want­ed his quick bowler Fi­del Ed­wards to en­joy the ear­ly mois­ture. Ed­wards–as he showed in Bra­vo's mu­sic video–danced all over the open­ers in two overs that trou­bled the Tri­dents and cost on­ly six runs.

Shane Dowrich and Dwayne Smith de­cid­ed to at­tack from the oth­er end and Samuel Badree felt their wrath. Bra­vo to his cred­it did not al­low the bats­men to set­tle against any bowler and fre­quent­ly made changes. Badree did, how­ev­er, come back for the last over of the pow­er-play and got the wick­et of Smith. With the score on 40, he had the Chen­nai Su­per Kings hard-hit­ter caught on the long-on bound­ary for 13.At the fall of this wick­et, the Red Steel failed to push on and looked flat in the mid­day sun. Sulie­man Benn kept on call­ing on wick­et­keep­er Nicholas Pooran to keep the play­ers on their feet and it worked. Bra­vo took the ball and sent down two tidy overs from the Me­dia Cen­tre End and his men start­ed to re­spond.

At the end of the tenth over, the score was 67 for one and this ne­ces­si­tat­ed big hit­ting. With this al­ways comes wick­ets and the Irish­man Kevin O'Brien oblig­ed, send­ing back Pak­istani Shoaib Ma­lik for a 23-ball 21 and South African Neil McKen­zie for sev­en. All the while Dowrich was gath­er­ing his runs qui­et­ly at the oth­er end.As the pres­sure built, he too threw cau­tion to the wind and was dis­missed by Kevon Coop­er for 37. He faced 38 balls and struck five fours. At 84 for four with five overs to go, skip­per Pol­lard was the right man for the oc­ca­sion.He took five balls to get off the mark and just as he start­ed to find his range, so too did Bra­vo, hav­ing him caught and bowled for sev­en. The right-arm medi­um-pac­er then helped Jonathan Carter on his way to the dug out and it took a nine-ball 17 from Ja­son Hold­er to give the Tri­dents their even­tu­al score off 124 for six in 20 overs. Bra­vo fin­ished with two for 17 and O'Brien fetched two for six.The Red Steel's next as­sign­ment is in Guyana where they play the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors on Thurs­day.

SCORE­BOARD

Red Steel vs Tri­dents

Tri­dents inns

D Smith c Bra­vo b Badree 13

S Dowrich b Coop­er 37

S Ma­lik c Tay­lor b O'Brien 21

N McKen­zie c DJ Bra­vo b O'Brien 7

K Pol­lard c&b DJ Bra­vo 7

J Carter c Ed­wards b DJ Bra­vo 5

J Hold­er not out 17

A Nurse not out 6

Ex­tras lb8, w3 11

To­tal 6 wk­ts (20ovs) 124

Fall of wk­ts: 40, 74, 83, 84, 97, 99.

Bowl­ing: F Ed­wards 3-0-12-0, S Badree 4-0-24-1 (1w), K Coop­er 4-0-30-1, S Benn 4-0-27-0, D Bra­vo 3-0-17-2, K O'Brien 2-0-6-2.

Red Steel inns

N Jamshed c Nurse b Ma­lik 0

E Lewis c McKen­zie b Ram­paul 4

R Tay­lor lbw Ram­paul 62

D Bra­vo not out 54

N Pooran not out 1

Ex­tras lb1, w3 4

To­tal 3 wk­ts (17.3ovs) 125

Fall of wk­ts: 0, 20, 115.

Bowl­ing: S Ma­lik 2-0-16-1, R Ram­paul 3-0-18-2, J Hold­er 4-0-17-0, R Em­rit 2-0-18-0, A Nurse 2-0-12-0, A Ho­sein 3-0-26-0, K Pol­lard 1-0-9-0, D Smith .3-0-8-0.

Re­sult: Red Steel won by sev­en wick­ets.