The St Lucia Zouks came up short in their first Caribbean Premier League (CPL) final on Thursday afternoon, losing to the Trinbago Knight Riders by 8 wickets. Match Summary: Trinbago Knight Riders 157/2 (Simmons 84*, DM Bravo 58*; Chase 1/13, Kuggeleijn 1/30) beat St Lucia Zouks 154 all out (Fletcher 39, Deyal 29, Najibullah 24, Chase 22; Pollard 4/30, Fawad 2/22, Ali Khan 2/25, Hosein 1/26) by 8 wickets
In a post match interview, Captain Daren Sammy reflected: “We thought we were about 15 to 20 runs short from the start that we had. Plus we didn’t completely finish our batting inning. When you’re playing against a side like TKR you’ve got to make sure you at least make full use of your overs. We still felt we had enough when we put them under pressure in the first 6 overs but look, these guys been playing together for a while, their experience showed. They held their nerve, they absorbed some pressure and then they put it back on us.”
Asked whether there was anything he felt he could have done differently in the bowling effort, Sammy stated: “Of course. When you lose a final there’s always things going in your head that you think you could have done differently. Throughout the tournament, I’ve always trusted my gut feeling. Probably coming down to with four overs left, maybe I should have been surer of the decision that I wanted to take but with that said, I’m really proud of the guys.”
Sammy indicated that from the start of the tournament, nobody thought the Zouks would be in this position and praised his teammates for playing well. He says that they were beaten by a very experienced side and congratulated the Kieron Pollard-led team. “We’ve been resilient, we’ve showed commitment, we’ve played a brand of cricket that shows you don’t need superstars, once you are effective and you believe in your team. These guys over there they’ve done really really well,” he said. “For eight years we’ve been trying to get to the finals; four other teams wish they could have been here. We’re disappointed but like I said to them in the huddle, you got to keep your head up.”
The captain says that the team has a good core and they can improve with the addition of some experience. “Saint Lucia was buzzing. The fans, the prime minister, the whole nation was behind us. We’re very disappointed but now we’ve shown that if we play a brand of cricket, we could get results,” Sammy said.
