BRIDGETOWN–Trinida­di­an all-rounder Rayad Em­rit has cau­tioned Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents against com­pla­cen­cy, as they pre­pare to de­fend their ti­tle in next month's Caribbean Pre­mier League.

Tri­dents beat Guyana Ama­zon War­riors in a rain-af­fect­ed fi­nal in St Kitts last year to win the 2014 edi­tion.

And Em­rit said even though Tri­dents had an ex­cel­lent chance of re­tain­ing their ti­tle, he warned that oth­er teams had strength­ened sig­nif­i­cant­ly and win­ning again would be no for­mal­i­ty.

"The team has gelled re­al­ly well and the most im­por­tant thing is that we have the core play­ers who have played in the last two sea­sons," Em­rit said.

"It's al­ways good when you go in­to tour­na­ments such as these � fran­chise crick­et � where this is a team that al­ready knows each oth­er's strengths and weak­ness­es and I think that's what we have over a lot of oth­er teams.

"I per­son­al­ly think we have, if not the best chance, one of the best chances of win­ning the tour­na­ment so I think we can re­peat again."

He cau­tioned: "But it's eas­i­er said than done and we have to work hard. Ob­vi­ous­ly we are the cham­pi­ons and every team is go­ing to come and play us as hard as they can, so we need to step up. We can't do the same things we have been do­ing for the past two sea­sons be­cause teams are go­ing to work us out so we need to pre­pare well."

Tri­dents will launch the de­fence of their ti­tle in the cur­tain-rais­ing game of the tour­na­ment, when they clash with Ama­zon War­riors at Kens­ing­ton Oval on June 20.

They will al­so do bat­tle with 2013 cham­pi­ons Ja­maica Tallawahs, last year's se­mi-fi­nal­ists Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Steel and new-kids-on-the-block St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots, in the space of eight days at the Oval.

De­spite the chal­leng­ing na­ture of the team's open­ing games, Em­rit be­lieves Tri­dents had the abil­i­ty to cope, es­pe­cial­ly since gain­ing valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence at last year's Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy in In­dia.

Em­rit snatched 12 wick­ets dur­ing the last CPL cam­paign, and de­liv­ered telling per­for­mances in the last two pre­lim­i­nary games when Tri­dents crushed Tallawahs and Red Steel, to book a di­rect spot in the fi­nal.

He said he en­joyed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of big games, and was look­ing for­ward to sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences in the com­ing sea­son.

The fi­nal of the tour­na­ment is set for Ju­ly 26 in Trinidad and To­ba­go. (CMC)