HYDERABAD, India (CMC-IANS) – Trinidad & Tobago captain Daren Ganga said he is confident of a good show in the remainder of the Champions League Twenty20.
Ganga spoke after Ravi Rampaul followed up half-centuries from Lendl Simmons and Adrian Barath with impressive bowling to catapult Trinidad & Tobago into the main draw of the competition with a convincing, 51-run victory over Leicestershire yesterday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here.
Ganga said he was pleased with the way things unfolded in his side’s second consecutive victory in the qualifying round of the competition.
“As a captain, you are always pleased with a victory like this,” he said. “It was a convincing victory from the very first ball. We laid a good foundation for this victory. It is really heartening to see batting come together.
”It was not an assailable total in these conditions. Again, we set the game up in the first six to eight overs. It was really good to dominate a team like this.”
Ganga added: “We just want to focus on playing one game at a time. We came to play eight matches. We have played two here, got four matches in the preliminary round.
“I don’t want to sound over-confident, but we believe in our ability. We believe in our style of T20 cricket, and we will continue playing to our strength.”
Ganga said T&T were looking forward to playing against Mumbai Indians, whose side includes compatriot Kieron Pollard, and Indian Premier League champions Chennai Super Kings, whose line-up includes another T&T all-rounder, Dwayne Bravo.
“We will rise to the occasion,” he said. “We think that we are as prepared a team as we can be. To beat (Leicestershire) will be a big feather in our cap. I am sure we are very motivated for these encounters.
“But it will be a weird sort of situation because both (Pollard and Bravo) were players in our team.”
T&T reached the Final of the inaugural CLT20 two years ago, when they lost to New South Wales Blues of Australia. (See other story on page 31).