In the CG Super 50 tournament against Red Force and Harpy Eagles, Red Force suffered a narrow defeat by three runs. Despite the unfortunate loss, Trinidad and Tobago Red Force head coach David Furlong is confident that he will come back strong in the next game.
Set 270 to win at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Taroba on Wednesday night, the Red Force needed 5 from the last ball of the match. But at the end of 50 overs, Sunil Narine, who struck as a batsman, could not bring victory to the host team.
Darren Bravo came into the score in this match, scoring 71 off 88 balls with four fours and two sixes. The Red Force coach told Express that he saw the old Bravo.
“I think we saw a glimpse of the old Bravo there and we look forward to him continuing to score runs in the rest of the tournament. It was just unfortunate he got out at the time he did.”
“If you are chasing with a required rate which was at one stage seven per over and then it went up to nine or ten an over, those players who got out were trying to keep up with the run rate, so I don’t think we can fault them for that. The openers batted excellently as well to set it up for us.”
Red Force opener Kjorn Otley fell short of his second half-century of the tournament, while Joshua de Silva was dismissed for 28 by Romario Shepherd.
The Reds were a bit more cautious after that and Furlonge admitted that it was probably between the 30th and 35th overs that the game started to slip away.
“Even coming to the end, if we had gotten to a stage where we needed 20 to get in the last two overs and their main bowler Romario Shepherd was bowled out, we would have thought we were in the game. All respect to Pestano who was actually ill, coming off the field to take a rest and then coming back and he bowled an excellent last couple of overs also.”
Shepard faced only 46 balls for Guyana and by hitting 6 sixes and 5 fours in the last 5 overs, Harpy Eagles managed to revive the innings, taking the score from 184 for 8 in the 41st over to 269 for 9 after 50 overs.
The Red Force coach pointed to Shepherd’s unbeaten 74 as a key moment in the match.
“That innings by Shepherd was also excellent but we dropped two catches at the end there, one off the last ball when they got two runs.”
“They went from 198 for nine to 269 and the momentum was with them but I think we got it back with the two openers but we weren’t able to finish off at the end.”
“It is always disappointing to lose a game and we know we didn’t bowl as well as we could have.”
Furlonge also mentioned that both Sunil and Gabriel bowled very well.
“both Sunil and Shannon (Gabriel) bowled well and it was unfortunate that Shannon didn’t get to bowl his last over which was due to some tightness in his hamstring.”
“Jayden (Seales) and Anderson ( Phillip) didn’t hit their spots all the time.” He added however that, “they are young bowlers and we are hoping they will learn from it and come back stronger in the next game.”