Having won two and lost two on the road, the T&T Red Steel will be looking to maximise their home match advantage starting today, when they host the St Lucia Zouks at 6 pm at their fortress, the Queen's Park Oval.Dwayne Bravo's men walked through the Piarco Airport on Sunday having garnered five points from five matches. They can only afford one loss in the rest of their matches, to guarantee a place in the knockout phase. Coach Simon Helmot understands this:
He said: "We want to win all the matches before us but yes we do have the luxury of losing a match and still having a chance of qualifying. We are not taking anything for granted, most of the teams have played nearly all their matches and obviously they have more points than us.
We have played just five, we have four at home. Last year, we won all four matches at home and we are going after that again. If at the end of the four matches at home we can register wins, then we would go to Guyana on 13 points and in the knockout phase. The guys understand the position we are in right now and they know what is required to get to the knockout.
"We are happy to have won the last game before going back home to play because the T&T fans are the most passionate in the Caribbean and I don't want to imagine going back home with little or no chance."
The Red Steel batting has been a cause for concern so far in the series and the top order will have to come good to put teams under pressure. "We need the individual scores and we got that from William Perkins in the last match. He went out there and batted deep and got 64 not out and we won the game. More guys need to put up that good individual score. We are not too overly worried about our batting, we need to just focus on the basics and we will get the type of scores we want."
There is a concern over all rounder Kevon Cooper who received a warning for 'suspect' bowling action in the game against Jamaica. He is also nursing a hand injury and due to the these two situations, the Queen's Park player was not used against the Patriots."Cooper is fine, he just needs to do some work in the nets, get some overs under his belt and he will be back for us in this tournament. He is a critical part of our plans and he will be back, I am not worried."
The Zouks will enter the game with seven points from eight games and they will need to win their last two matches to stand a chance of moving into the knockout phase. They are without regular skipper Darren Sammy who has been ruled out of the tournament and stand in Kevin Pietersen will have his work cut out, as the Zouks batting looked a bit thin without the West Indies T20 captain in the ranks.
Checks with the authorities at CPL indicate that the match is nearly sold out and fans will have their last opportunity to get tickets for the match today, at the Oval box office.
TEAMS
T&T Red Steel: Dwayne Bravo (capt), William Perkins, Cameron Delport, Kamran Akmal, Jacques Kallis, Johan Botha, Darren Bravo, Samuel Badree, Derone Davis, Miguel Cummins, Javon Searles, Jason Mohammed, Samuel Badree, Sulieman Benn, Mark Deyal, Kevon Cooper. Head coach Simon Helmot, assistants David Williams and Imran Jan.
St Lucia Zouks: Andre Fletcher, Delorn Johnson, Eddie Leie, Fidel Edwards, Henry Davids, Johnson Charles, Keddy Lesporis, Kemar Roach, Kevin Pietersen (capt), Kerron Cottoy, Kyle Mayers, Liam Sebastien, Shane Shillingford and Shannon Gabriel. Head Coach Stuart Williams, assistant Ian Allen.