HYDERABAD: Trinidad and Tobago captain Darren Ganga Monday praised his spinners for the victory against Ruhunu in the opening game of the qualifying round of Champions League T20 and said the win will improve confidence of the team in the games ahead.
"It is too close for comfort. We need to take care at top of the order and how we approach things to change the momentum of the game," he told reporters after his side defeated Ruhunu by five wickets at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here.
Ganga believed the spinners did the trick for the team. "We have got some experienced slow bowlers. They have done tricks for us time and time again," he said.
The captain of the Caribbean team said the track was not easy to bat on. "It was a bit challenging. Some balls kept low."
He was all praise for Darren Bravo and Sherwin Ganga, whose unbroken sixth wicket partnership of 63, helped the team win the game. "Bravo knew what exactly his role was and Sherwin also played well," he said.
The captain, who scored 17 runs, said he tried to change the momentum of the game. "We did not get boundaries in the initial overs and changing the momentum was my attention. T20 is all about understanding what is happening and trying to change the momentum."
"We should have scored at least 160 runs," said Ruhunu's T.N. Sampath. The team from Sri Lanka was all out for 138 in 20 overs.
He attributed the defeat to the failure to score in last few overs, especially the 20th that saw Ruhunu losing four wickets, including three to run outs.
"We also missed run outs in their innings," Sampath said and hoped that the team would learn from the defeat and improve its performance in the next game against Leicestershire on Wednesday.
Poor turnout marks CLT20 qualifying matches
The qualifying round matches of Champions League T20 failed to enthuse the crowds here Monday with poor attendance marking the inaugural match between Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and Ruhunu at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Though, the turnout improved for the second match of the day featuring Kolkata Knight Riders and Auckland Aces, it was still not to the standards of T20 version.
According to officials of Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), the attendance for the second tie was a little over 8,000 in 40,000 capacity stadium.
A sparse crowd of a few hundreds watched the first match. With top names like Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee and Yusuf Pathan in action during the second match, cricket buffs walked in to give some respectability to the turnout.
The turnout was poor despite the minimum pricing for the tickets being Rs.100. These are only qualifying matches and except a few KKR players, others are not big names to draw huge crowds, explained an HCA official.
The poor turnout was also attributed to the strike by employees of the state-owned Road Transport Corporation in support of the demand for separate Telangana state. As RTC buses were off the roads, the most affordable mode of transport was not available for spectators to reach the stadium, located almost on the city outskirts.
With high voltage music and cheer girls, the organisers tried to provide some entertainment to the crowds on what proved to be an otherwise lacklustre day of cricket.