Batsmen need to be more positive, insists Anderson
Jason Anderson believes Bermuda need to be more positive when batting if they are to dig themselves out of an opening day hole that saw them lose their opening ICC Pepsi World Division 3 tournament to Uganda.Chasing 223, the hosts fell well short of the their required total, ending all out for 108 in their opening match at the National Sports Centre.“Although the outcome was a big disappointment, we did what we needed to do in the fielding department and restricted them to a reachable target,” said Anderson.“We were trying to go at about three to four runs per over and get ourselves in a good position, and we did that to an extent but in the end we didn’t have the wherewithal to maintain this throughout the innings.”The wheels came off for Bermuda when Anderson (13) fell lbw with the score on 39 and fellow opener Dion Stovell (19) one run later, with the Islanders never recovering from the double wicket over from Henry Senyondo.“I started well, Dion started well and we got to a certain total that was in our range but once the breakthrough came we just weren’t capable of dealing with what was in front of us and they got wickets regularly throughout the innings,” added Anderson.“When you look at it like that it is unfortunate.”Bermuda conceded 35 extras to help Uganda to their total, with Anderson urging his teammates to tighten up if they are to stand a chance of advancing to the next round.“We were our own enemies looking at how many extras we gave up,” he said.“We managed to peg them back with a few wickets and it wasn’t until the final few overs that they got a bunch of runs and we felt we could have kept them under 175.“All of our bowlers did well apart from one area, but our batting let ut down.“For tomorrow we need to be as positive as we can be; against teams you have to prepare for anything and with them opening with a spinner we were seeing the ball but again once the breakthrough came they took full advantage and we need to address this.“We can play spin, but too often as a batsman you try and find the boundary and we just couldn’t afford to do that today and that was our downfall in the end.“You have to to calculate ways to pull down a score and we have to try to have a strategy to playing against teams that will play three to fours spinners in this tournament.”Bermuda play Oman today at St David’s, starting at 10.30am.