We're fighting for our cricket lives against the UAE

This has been a long tough tournament for us and everything hasn’t gone according to plan.

Coach has had stern talks with the guys and we know the reason why we are in this position. We know the magnitude of the game we face on Thursday. Win and we stay in Division 2; lose and we’re down to Division 3.

The problem is we haven’t played a full 100 overs since we’ve been here. We’ve been playing games in part. Today we bowled very well up until the 40th over, but then the last 10 overs we bowled very poorly to give them a score of nearly 300.

Our heads dropped a bit as that was going to be a tough score to chase.

We lost early wickets and we tried to fight back, but it just didn’t happen.

It means a lot not having Malachi (Jones) available as he’s our number one strike bowler. He would be there helping bowl those first 10 or 12 overs and he’d be involved in the power play.

Young Damali Bell has had to take up the mantle and he’s done a good job but the experience of Malachi is a real big loss for us. But injuries are a part of the game and people have to step up to the wicket and fill that void and not having Malachi not being available isn’t the reason why we fully lost games.

It looks like Jason (Anderson) will be miss on Thursday too, but he’s had a very good tournament so far. It hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been very impressive for his first tournament at this level.

He’s stepped up to the do the job at the top of the order.

Dion (Stovell’s) 73 will hopefully jump start him at the top of the order for Thursday. It’s been a long time coming. He scored his 73 against what could be the best attack in the tournament and he took it to them.

I’ve played well but I’d give up all my runs for a win or two. This is a team and the team outcome is the most important.

The key for us on Thursday is concentrating on all 300 balls – 300 when we’re bowling and 300 when we’re batting.

The UAE are undefeated but we’ve come close to beating them before and we have beaten them in the warm-up match so we know we can beat them.

Everyone has to put a full game together and the guys have to fight for their lives. We have to play for country pride and give the younger people in Bermuda something to look forward to.

If we don’t win, it won’t be the end of cricket. We are too good for Division 3. We deserve to be in Division 2, so it would be a shame to drop down, but if we do, we won’t be there long.