He bowled his heart out, claiming his best ever T20 figures to lead his team to their first victory of the 2015 Hero CPL tournament, but skipper Dwayne Bravo is not happy with his batsmen.
Bravo claimed 4/18 against the Guyana Amazon Warriors to restrict them to 119 for nine off their 20 overs and his team then got victory of the penultimate ball of the innings after seemingly on course for an easy victory.
At one point the T&T Red Steel had taken the interest out of the game but a flurry of wickets towards the end saw them needing five runs off the last over bowled by Devendra Bishoo. The Guyanese leg spinner was brilliant on the night to claim 4/24 and even got a wicket in the final over but his front foot transgression allowed the Red Steel to take victory in the end.
According to Bravo: "Yes this is our first win and we have finally gotten off the mark but I am not happy at all. The bowlers did a wonderful job, Jacques (Kallis) got early wickets and (Johan) Botha bowled well in the powerplay. The fielding was also very good but the batting was not good at all."
Red Steel slipped from 61 for one to 115 for seven–losing six wickets for just 54 runs, before getting the win. Bravo said: "If we want to reach far in this tournament, the batsmen must do much better, they have to come good in order for us to win matches, it cannot be about the bowling and fielding alone."
Topscoring on the night for Shah Rukh Khan's men was the Pakistani Kamran Akmal who notched 30. Others getting starts were Cameron Delport 22, Jacques Kallis 20 and Darren Bravo 19.
The T&T Red Steel now has three points from three matches and the win lifted them from the bottom of the six-team table to fifth place. They now move on to Jamaica where they play the fourth place Tallawahs on Thursday at Sabina Park in Jamaica.
The team wil fly to Miami where they have a five-hour layover and then to Jamaica. South African Johan Botha is the lone player who will fly directly to Jamaica.