Longer, and more tournament-specific preparation: That is what John Pollard is calling for.

The coach of the successful Trinidad and Tobago Rising Stars Men’s Under-17 50-over cricket team says these adjustments are needed for players at both the Under-17 and Under-19 levels to thrive in future.

“Based on this year with what happened with our Under-19s, we need to move and move fast in the sense of proper preparation.” Pollard told the Express yesterday.

Pollard, a former national Under-19 captain himself explained: “When I say preparation, I mean knowing what version of competition the regional competition is going to take. I mean, is it two-day cricket, is it 50-over cricket, is it 40-overs cricket? We need to simulate our training to suit what the regional competition is asking for.”

While T&T, under opening batter Saleem Khan, won the Under-17 section of the competition on Saturday and finished third in the earlier two-day tournament, Pollard admitted that preparation was not ideal.

“The challenge for me this year was most of my boys would have been engaged in T20 cricket from the school level and maybe club level as well. They were not playing two-day cricket and 50-over cricket; not even at secondary school, so it was a big challenge. And I’m saying if we don’t simulate these sessions to suit what we going to play, we going to find ourselves in real, real big problems.”

Stressing that, “the planning has to be better,” Pollard said: “Maybe have the Under-17s playing in our National 2 competition as a team; have the Under-19s playing as a team in the Championship Division. They might get beat up but the process should start, so by the time competition for regional level, we will be almost there.”

While the Under-19 team had a disappointing tournament earlier this year, the Uuder-17s were more competitive. In what was a virtual final on Saturday, they beat Barbados by 23 runs to clinch the title in what was a rain-affected tournament.

Pollard acknowledged that the washout the Leewards Islands suffered in the final round, after beginning the day in second spot, “played a big part in the victory as well.”

Disciplined T&T

However, the T&T coach credited his players for their overall victory, saying, “I would put it down to players being disciplined, playing to their strengths and the execution on the field.” He was especially happy with the performance against Barbados. T&T won the match by 23 runs.

Pollard described it as a “sweet” victory. “On a difficult pitch, I think we did well to post a total of 194… And then on the other side… to bowl out Barbados, that is an achievement in itself. So there were a lot of pluses in that victory and all the commendation goes out to the boys.”

Chinaman/googly bowler Ra’ed Ali Khan and left-arm wrist spinner Daron Dhanraj were the top bowlers against Barbados, taking three wickets apiece as the Bajans were limited to 171.

Dhanraj, son of former T&T and West Indies leg-spinner Rajendra Dhanraj, was the 50-over tournament’s MVP and leading wicket-taker. And Pollard noted: “He would have played a big part in the tournament with his left-arm wrist spin.”

The T&T coach also lauded the work of pacers Daniel Williams and Renaldo Fournillier.

“All the players are talented but when you get on to the field, you have to execute. I think the execution was on point. Although the spinners were the main wicket-takers in the tournament, I think our medium pacers were just as disciplined to bowl good lines and lengths at the beginning of the game,” he said.

Tournament rules dictated that the first ten overs of an innings had to be delivered by the pace bowlers.

Tournament standard

Overall, Pollard rated the standard of the two tournaments as “very high.”

“We got hundreds from a few players which is commendable–not on our team.” And while admitting that some teams were “very poor,” he added that, “there had one or two outstanding players on each team.”

He described two-day MVP Kumal Tilokani of the Leeward Islands who had both the most runs and wickets as a, “really, really smashing guy.”

Next year, Pollard is hoping that more tournament-specific planning will allow his players to me more smashing also.