PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Nov 19, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago Red Force coach Gus Logie wants his batsmen to follow the example of Kraigg Brathwaite, as the team prepares to take Leeward Islands in the second round of the WICB Professional Cricket League starting Friday.
The 21-year-old Brathwaite carved out a superb 182 in the first round match against Red Force last weekend at Queen’s Park Oval, an innings that allowed Barbados Pride to put up a challenging 360 in their first innings.
In reply, T&T collapsed to 96 all out in their first innings and were still in trouble at 215 for five in their second innings following on, when heavy rain ended the game abruptly on the final day with just 14.4 overs possible.
“One has to give credit to young Kraigg Brathwaite for the way he played. He showed everybody else what a player who has played at highest level can produce at this level,” said Logie, a former Test player.
“I think we have players of that quality who have had experience at the international level and we are hoping they can bring that level of performance to this level.
“Taking a leaf from his book will be good for us going forward. It is only him and (Shane) Dowrich that held us up so all things considered and did not think we bowled that badly.”
Yannick Cariah with 26, and opener Lendl Simmons with 25, were the only two batsmen to pass 20 for Red Force as the batting side never came to grips with the Barbados attack.
There was a second innings improvement with attacking opener Evin Lewis hammering 61 and Yannick Ottley getting 44, in a 90-run second wicket stand.
However, T&T were still 51 runs behind when the rains came, and Logie conceded that the rain interruptions throughout the game had been a blessing in disguise.
“Rain kept us in the game and in the tournament so we have to take it one step at a time now, get to the Leeward Islands and certainly put all departments of our game together,” Logie said.
“At the end of the day, one could only hope to reach 300-plus and that would have been a good fillip for us. Whether we won the game or not would have been irrelevant at the end of the day but I think there is no excuse for the way we batted in the first innings.”