Cap­tain of the Trin­ba­go Knight rid­ers Kieron Pol­lard says that he stands by his play­ers be­cause that gives any­one con­fi­dence.

Pol­lard threw the ball to New Zealan­der Jim­my Nee­sham, the birth­day boy on the night af­ter he had con­ced­ed 50 runs from three overs. It was for him to de­fend 19 runs in the fi­nal over, but in­stead, he leaked 18 runs to Rayad Em­rit and Alzari Joseph play­ing for the St. Kitts/Nevis Pa­tri­ots.

The game went in­to a Su­per Over and TKR lost, as the Pa­tri­ots (Car­los Brath­waite and Evin Lewis) racked up 18 runs from Muham­mad Ali Khan, while the TKR re­spond­ed with 5/1 af­ter los­ing Dar­ren Bra­vo who opened with skip­per Pol­lard for the 19-run vic­to­ry chase.

Pol­lard, who is cap­tain­ing the TKR for the first time said: "I thought that things went pret­ty well when we bat­ted. Alzarri bowled well af­ter the first 10 overs to pull us back. I thought 216 was just about par, we could have got 20-30 more. It was a great game of crick­et our boys fought hard. In hind­sight, I could have bowled the last over, but he [Nee­sham] did the job for us a cou­ple of nights ago. Yes, he had a bad day but I backed him. I could have maybe backed my­self like Car­los here did tonight, but it's part and par­cel of the game."

Pol­lard who had some bruis­ing bat­tles with the TKR in the past said that one thing he al­ways ad­mired was the way the man­age­ment backed the play­ers. "I use to try to fig­ure out what was the se­cret to suc­cess when we play them. I have found out now since be­ing with the team that to­geth­er­ness is the key. These guys go out in the park know­ing ful­ly well that they are free to ex­press them­selves be­cause they have the full sup­port of the man­age­ment. The play­ers al­so back each oth­er ful­ly and this is great for any crick­eter to re­ceive. I have come in and we have con­tin­ued in that way, which is great."

Guardian Me­dia Sports un­der­stands that man­age­ment had a chat with the in­jured Sunil Nar­ine on Thurs­day and they are still not 100 per cent sure that he will play against the St. Lu­cia Zouks to­mor­row night at the Dar­ren Sam­my In­ter­na­tion­al crick­et ground.

He has been bat­tling with a lig­a­ment in­jury to the mid­dle fin­ger of the right hand and he will be need­ed for some of the big­ger match­es at the end of the tour­na­ment.

Guardian Me­dia Sports was in­formed that man­age­ment has de­cid­ed to mon­i­tor him and man­age him through­out the tour­na­ment and use him on­ly when nec­es­sary. The TKR has four wins out of five match­es played and with the Zouks not be­ing in their best form, Nar­ine is more than like­ly to ben­e­fit from an­oth­er rest day on Sat­ur­day.

The team has set­tled nice­ly at the Co­co Palm ho­tel and will be at the ground this morn­ing for a fi­nal train­ing ses­sion ahead of the match. The track here is hard and boun­cy, so the ball would come on nice­ly un­to the bat, which will aid stroke­play. So runs are ex­pect­ed to be the or­der of the day. Tick­et sales have been a bit slug­gish but if the Zouks can con­jure up a win over the Tri­dents in their first home game tonight, the crowds will be en­cour­aged to show.