Brisbane Heat captain James Hopes is drawing on his team’s recent good record in sudden-death fixtures to keep their Champions League Twenty20 campaign alive.
The Heat slipped to a 25-run loss to Trinidad and Tobago in their opening clash on Sunday at Ranchi, putting their hopes of advancing out of the group stage on thin ice.
The defeat means Tuesday night’s game against South Africa’s Titans is virtually an elimination match after they were defeated by IPL franchise Chennai in the other Group B fixture.
Hopes is calling on his teammates to show the fight that won them last summer’s Big Bash League title after they overcame Hobart to reach the finals, before beating the Melbourne Renegades and Perth Scorchers on the road to claim the crown.
“We’ve done okay with those sort of matches,” Hopes said when asked about the must-win scenario against the Titans.
He said Brisbane’s batting against Trinidad and Tobago simply wasn’t good enough after restricting the Caribbean-based team to just 9-135 with the ball, including a starring role from Alister McDermott (4-37).
Youngster Joe Burns top-scored with 45 but Hopes admitted the Heat need to take more risks at the start of their batting to avoid getting bogged down.
“I still think we’ve got the batting that can be successful over here,” Hopes said.
“We have to go about it a little bit differently on Tuesday night and our turnaround’s pretty quick.
“We should have jumped out of the gates and got it pretty easy in the end but we dug ourselves into a hole and couldn’t get out of it.”
The former Australia limited-overs representative admitted some of the younger players in the Heat’s line-up had struggled to handle mystery spinner Sunil Narine, who claimed 2-25 for Trinidad and Tobago.
“He’s one of the best spinners in the world and showed that tonight,” Hopes said.
“Bit of an eye-opener for a few of our lads who haven’t seen him before. He befuddled them.”