On Saturday, the Patriots fell by 10 wickets to an ever-improving St Lucia Zouks to add to losses against the Barbados Tridents and the Guyana Amazon Warriors earlier in the week.
According to Emrit, the team is yet to get any one facet of its game going the way it should.
On Saturday, he pointed to more than one instance when the team got it wrong.
“There’s a couple of things that you can look at. A couple of chances that went down,” Emrit began.
Adding that; “When you look at the last two overs of the game, after we were pulling them back so well after 18 overs the last two overs went for about 30-odd. We thought we had them. You know, 150-160 might have been ideal on that wicket but we just let it go in those last two overs,” he said after the Zouks scored 172 despite a middle-overs slip.
“We are trying to get everything in place. We are trying to get all aspects to perform. We just can’t get it right at the moment. We have to go back to drawing board,” he said.
With three losses from three starts, Emrit says there is now pressure on the team headed into their fourth game against the defending champions, Barbados Tridents.
“Now it is three out of three so the pressure is on us but we’ve been in this position before and it’s just for us to get a win under our belt and get the momentum.”
The Patriots have brought in two players from other franchises. They have signed Dwayne Bravo from Trinbago Knight Riders in a trade deal that saw Denesh Ramdin go the other way. They have also signed Sherfane Rutherford from Guyana Amazon Warriors.
In addition to these two signings, they have retained Evin Lewis, Fabian Allen, Sheldon Cottrell, Jon Russ Jaggesar and Rayad Emrit.
Exciting young prospects Joshua da Silva and Dominic Drakes round out the retentions.
The Patriots have eight spots to fill to complete their squad and these will be announced in the coming weeks.
“The St Kitts and Nevis Franchise extends a warm welcome to the new players joining us this year as well as to our retained core team for yet another exciting season of the Hero CPL. This year makes it extra special with us playing at our home – Warner Park. I would like to thank all our team players, support staff and management as well as our global fan base for their continued love and support. I look forward to an amazing season in 2021,” said Patriots owner Mahesh Ramani.
The retained players are Dwayne Bravo, Evin Lewis, Fabian Allen, Sherfane Rutherford, Sheldon Cottrell, Rayad Emrit.
With just one win from their 10 games, the Patriots were eliminated from contention for a spot in the semi-finals that begin on Tuesday.
Captain Rayad Emrit believes there are many reasons for the team’s poor performance including the absence of all-rounder Fabian Allen and a last-minute coaching change. However, he highlighted some of the more positive things about the season. Among them, Da Silva playing in his debut season.
“Joshua Da Silva has been okay for us playing his first T20 tournament,” he said.
The 22-year-old Trinidadian, who is not known as a T20 player, had best scores of 59, 41 and 29 in the 136 runs he scored this season at an average of 27.2 and strike rate of 102.
It is no surprise then that he believes he has a lot to learn if he is to become a much better player in this shortest version of the game.
“I can use some work in a lot of different areas; fitness of course,” he told Sportsmax.TV. “Probably finding out a bit more about my boundary areas, I am a not the biggest hitter of the ball, I am not going to blast the ball all over the park.
“I like to use my technique; just figuring out where my technique stands and how am I going to get that pressure shot away, where are my boundary options are.”
He said he has been speaking to his more experienced teammates Ben Dunk and Chris Lynn about how to go about finding those areas where he is sure to get those boundaries. “Even if it doesn’t come off, even if I don’t get the right ball, I am still looking to score runs and not soak up dot-balls.
“The least dot-balls in T20 cricket, the better. I definitely can improve in those areas.”
The Golden Republic T20 Bash will see two exciting matches for all cricket fans to enjoy as Guyana celebrates 50 years as a republic on February 23. Emrit and Simmons will be on opposing sides in the feature clash between the Hetmyer Hurricanes and the Rutherford Renegades at 6 p.m.
Emrit, a right-arm medium-fast bowler, has played on several franchise teams globally while Simmons is an attacking top-order batsman, who was a member of the West Indies T20 side that won the T20 World Cup in India in 2016.
In the first game set for 2 p.m. national softball champions, Regal All-Star will take on the up-and-coming Ariel Speed Boat All-Stars.
The event is organized by the Guyana Cricket Board in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Cohesion Department of Culture Youth and Sport.
This initiative is part of CWI’s “Cricket First” strategic plan to invest in building coaching depth and quality across the region, considering the vital role coaches play in developing cricketers’ skills across all age groups and abilities.
The High-Performance (Level 3) programme has been designed by CWI Coach Development Manager, Chris Brabazon, in partnership with the University of the West Indies (UWI). It provides a number of the region’s best coaches with opportunities to further learn and develop contemporary coaching philosophies and techniques that will allow them to thrive in the high-performance environment of the West Indies Cricket Pathway.
The rigorous, holistic accreditation, which started with an online induction on Sunday, September 19, will see 17 participants from across the region take part in a 12-month programme via a blended learning approach.
Among the coaches who are pursuing this highest level of accreditation are former West Indies batting great Shivnarine Chanderpaul; former West Indies international players: Rayad Emrit, Nikita Miller, Ryan Austin, and Garey Mathurin as well as Test batsman and current Guyana Jaguars player Vishaul Singh.
The course will consist of online discussions, tutorials, and ongoing mentoring as well as a face-to-face residential component to be held in Antigua in October 2021. In addition to the technical basics of elite cricket, topics will include Programme Management, Sports Psychology, Leadership, Communication as well as Visual Technology and Data Analysis.
Delivery of the course will be by CWI High-Performance staff, in conjunction with UWI representatives, to provide participants with unprecedented access to best practice case studies and frameworks from the elite levels of West Indies cricket and beyond.
CWI’s Coach Development Manager, Chris Brabazon, highlighted how the programme will significantly enhance high-performance cricket across the region.
“This programme will provide a huge boost to the upper echelons of our West Indies Cricket Pathway. By the end of our 12-month journey with these participants, we will have significantly added to our stable of local high-performance coaches,” he said.
“This group will understand how the role of a high-performance coach continues to evolve and how they can best manage themselves and their resources to create the best high-performance environments possible for their players in their current role whilst inspiring them to strive for the next step in their own coaching journey.”
In a brief address to the participants, CWI President Ricky Skerritt expressed his delight that the plan for self-sufficiency in modern coaching development was close to being fulfilled at CWI. He said that 29 certified Level 2 coaches had applied for the 17 available spaces, which have just been filled.
“Coaches must compete for places just like cricketers do. Competitiveness and education are two key components for achieving excellence in coaching,” Skerritt said.
President Skerritt informed participants that, just in the past two years, 497 new coaching certificates had already been delivered across eight Caribbean countries – 81 at Level 2, 116 at Level 1, and 300 at the Foundation Level. 16 CWI Coach Developers have also been trained to deliver Level 1 Courses locally.
“For our young West Indian cricketers to achieve their very best outcomes, all that we do to assist and support them must also be of the highest possible quality,” the CWI president said.
They have also signed Denesh Ramdin from the Trinbago Knight Riders. Captain Rayad Emrit, who has also been retained, is excited by the decisions made on player retentions and the hiring of a new coach.
“I am very excited to be part of the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots for a second season,” said the veteran bowler.
“I think that the team that is selected this year is going to be a very exciting one. I am very excited to be named as captain. It's always an honour and a privilege to lead a franchise.
“Our new coach, Simon Helmot, knows the CPL and he knows how to win titles. He and I are going to work very hard to get the team to the finals.”
Promising fast bowler Alzarri Joseph has also been retained with Dominic Drakes in as the emerging player.
The franchise will announce international retentions and signings later. For the 2020 season teams can retain as many players from their 2019 squads as they wish. They could also transfer players to other teams and sign emerging players.
The CPL is scheduled to take place between August 19 and September 26 but the tournament organisers are currently watching the current situation with COVID-19 closely and are liaising with medical advisors and governments.
The CPL said a decision on whether the tournament can proceed as planned, or at a different time, will be made as soon as possible.
Kieron Pollard countered Rayad Emrit’s decision to bat first by putting himself in at bat-pad for both Akeal Hosein and Sikandar Raza’s first overs. Chris Lynn did hit Hosein for a Hero Maximum over mid-on, but two balls later he failed to clear deep midwicket even with a favourable breeze and a short boundary. After three overs, the Patriots were 13/1.
Evin Lewis chewed up deliveries, still scoring at only three an over even after sweeping Hosein for six, and it was not a surprise when he hacked at Raza and gave keeper Tim Seifert an easy catch off the top-edge. Lewis faced 19 dot balls in his 24 ball innings and contributed to a Powerplay in which the Patriots stuttered to 27/2.
Ben Dunk too fell to a top-edge, Pravin Tambe taking an outstanding catch at short-third man off his fellow leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed. Tambe got a wicket of his own, skidding one on to trap Joshua da Silva LBW, and Fawad trapped the promoted Imran Khan in a similar fashion for a duck. Emrit and Denesh Ramdin did at least break a run of four straight overs with a wicket falling, but at halfway the Patriots were 36/5, and every over had been bowled by spinners on a perfectly serviceable pitch.
Ramdin showed intent to resist, smashing Fawad for a flat Hero Maximum over the short leg-side boundary, but in between that and the previous boundary, the Patriots had lost 4/15 in 35 balls. Tambe’s third over went for just four, and in the 13th over the fit-again Ali Khan came on for the game’s first over of pace and struck third ball, Ramdin finding Darren Bravo on the long-on boundary. Tambe bowled out going for just one, leaving the Patriots 64/6 after 14.
Anderson Phillip’s first over went for just two, and Fawad picked up two wickets in his last over to finish with his best ever Hero CPL figures. If Emrit was unlucky to edge onto pad and see the ball roll onto the stumps, Colin Archibald’s stumping was all due to Seifert’s poise waiting for the moment the foot lifted. Alzarri Joseph swung a Hero Maximum over Hosein’s head, but soon after picked out Phillip at long-off, and the Patriots were 75/9 off 17.
A leg bye took the Patriots past their lowest ever Hero CPL total, 75 away to the Jamaica Tallawahs in 2016, but Phillip soon put the innings out of its misery. It was the first innings in Hero CPL history where a team did not hit a single four.
Tion Webster, in contrast, hit two fours off Sheldon Cottrell in the first over of the chase. With Narine and Lendl Simmons rested, Amir Jangoo got another game and started calmly, not allowing many dot balls and giving the strike to the fluent Webster, who hit Imran for two more fours to take the Knight Riders to 27/0 off four overs. Jon-Russ Jaggesar was tight in both his overs, but Webster and Jangoo both hit Joseph for fours to take the Knight Riders to 42/0 off the Powerplay.
Webster was mostly content to hit through rather than over the field, but did launch Joseph onto the grass bank for a Hero Maximum to take the Knight Riders opening pair past 50 - remarkably, the first time they had done so for the first wicket all season - but Jangoo fell to Emrit next ball to end the stand at 54. Seifert joined Webster, and the Knight Riders coasted to 63/1 at halfway, needing just 15 more to win.
Seifert finished the innings in style with a Hero Maximum, consigning the Patriots to just three points from the group stage, and emulating last season’s perfect league stage from the Guyana Amazon Warriors to march undefeated into Tuesday’s semi-final against the Jamaica Tallawahs. A team with two world-class spinners and Andre Russell can never be discounted, but the Knight Riders machine will take some stopping.
Summary (Trinbago Knight Riders 78/1 (Webster 41*, Jangoo 19, Seifert 16*; Emrit 1/14) beat St Kitts & Nevis Patriots 77 all out (Ramdin 19, Emrit 15, Lewis 12; Fawad 4/21, Hosein 2/25, Phillip 1/3, Raza 1/6, Tambe 1/9, Ali Khan 1/10) by 9 wickets)
Upcoming Fixture: Sunday 6 September - Match 30: St Lucia Zouks v Jamaica Tallawahs (2:15 pm), 1:15 in Jamaica at Brian Lara Cricket Academy
