‘I don’t fear any opponent. Twenty20 is a bit of a lottery and anything could happen. The players have just got to go for it.’
The words of island cricket coach Gareth Dawson ahead of the ICC Division One Championship which starts today, Monday, in Sussex.
The Manx, who won Division Two and promotion in Corfu at the end of last summer, begin their campaign against one of the competition favourites Denmark this morning at 11.30am.
With France, Germany, Belgium and Jersey also in the island’s group, Dawson’s side will do well to achieve his aim of finishing in the top six.
‘It’s not the easiest of draws and we’re going there as underdogs having just been promoted.
‘We’ve got to front up to the challenge and see what happens. The aim is to finish in the top five or top six play-off places.’
‘We’ll take Denmark on, but I don’t think it will shape our tournament. Tuesday’s the key when we play two games in a day.’
The championship is a bit of a step into the unknown for the Manx squad who will be accompanied by tour manager Barry Smith, assistant coach Andrew Parkin-Coates and physio Mark Young as they set-up camp in Crawley having never played at this level before.
‘It’s quite hard finding out information about our opponents. Squads change quite a lot and there’s only so much you can find out over the internet.
‘I think one of big differences this time is that we’re not playing on Astroturf wickets. The adaptation to grass ones will be something that the players have got to come to terms with quickly.
‘We’re going to be coming up against a lot more slow bowlers than we’ve encountered in the past so that will be a learning curve as well.
‘The guys have got to be prepared to adapt to conditions that are completely different to what they’re used to. There may be cases where some people struggle. Hopefully this won’t be the case, but we may have to make different selection decisions to those we have made in the past.’
If the Manx match their heroics of last September and are in the top two come the week’s end they’ve got T20 World Cup qualifiers to look forward to in November.
l Catch the full video interview with Dawson online at iomtoday.co.im/cricket