T&T Red Steel continued to enjoy bad luck on their final leg of the 2014 Limacol Caribbean Premier League T20 tournament, as rain prevented them from hitting the nets at Warner Park in St Kitts yesterday.
The team has suffered two losses since arriving in St Kitts and they finished third in the preliminary round of the six-team standings after arriving in the Island as the leaders. Red Steel went under to Barbados Tridents and cellar placed Antigua Hawksbills and now will enter into a playoff against defending champions Jamaica Tallawah's tomorrow. If they win this clash, they move on to battle Guyana Amazon Warriors in another playoff and if successful, they battle Barbados Tridents in the finals.
Manager of the team Colin Borde speaking to T&T Guardian said: "I am happy with the fact that the boys' spirits are still high. We were not able to go to the ground to train today after the rain but we did some work at the beach. We had a good session in terms strength and conditioning and the boys all enjoyed the time nevertheless."
Borde said every match now was a virtual final and the coach and management had spoken to the players and they were assessing their performances and looking to correct the errors.
"When we came here the top five batsmen were all in good form. They were getting runs and when it did not happen here, the middle order failed to deliver.," said Borde.
"Partnerships have been our problem since arriving here and the guys have deviated from the plan.
"The coach has been emphasising this and the players are aware that in the last two games, they moved away from what was suppose to give them the success and they need to return to the plan.
"We have beaten every team that remains in this tournament and we think we can still go all the way and lift this title.
"We did not reach the finals in the way we wanted to but we are still in and at this moment, all the teams are even. We are in a situation where we need to win every match from here onwards. Every game is a final for us and this is sure to spur the players on even further.
"We said before that we will be in St Kitts until August 17 and we are sticking to that original plan."The finals of the CPL takes place on Saturday at Warner Park.
Final standings
Team M W L D N/R Pts RR
1 Tridents 9 6 3 0 0 12 +0.675
2 Warriors 9 6 3 0 0 12 +0.414
3 Red Steel 9 6 3 0 0 12 +0.317
4 Tallawahs 9 6 3 0 0 12 +0.071
5 Zouks 9 2 7 0 0 4 -0.790
6 Hawksbills 9 1 8 0 0 2 -0.820