2020 West In­dies Cham­pi­onship Thread

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Bravo bolster Red Force attack.
By Vinode Mamchan (Guardian).

Skip­per Dar­ren Bra­vo is back and will bol­ster the T&T Red Force team as it goes in­to bat­tle against the Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes in the team's eight-round West In­dies Cham­pi­onship match at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do on Thurs­day.

T&T com­mence the con­test full of con­fi­dence af­ter its vic­to­ry in the last game against ta­ble-top­per Bar­ba­dos Pride al­so at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my on Sun­day.

Coach Mervyn Dil­lon said af­ter prac­tice yes­ter­day that hav­ing Bra­vo will be a ma­jor fil­lip for the team.

"The skip­per is back and this is big for us. We have done well thus far and I have told the play­ers don't close their minds off in terms of fin­ish­ing at the top. We just have to play our games hard, stay fo­cus and keep win­ning and con­trol the things that we can. We can­not con­trol the oth­er re­sults but we have our own des­tiny in our hands," he said.

With a max­i­mum of 24 points avail­able in every round, 72 points are left on the ta­ble for each team in the Cham­pi­onship so they all, es­pe­cial­ly front-run­ning Bar­ba­dos Pride and five-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Guyana Jaguars, will chase as many as pos­si­ble to make their places se­cure in the points ta­ble.

Bra­vo, a left-hand­ed bats­man who won rave re­views with the way he han­dled the team in the first cou­ple match­es be­fore fly­ing off for West In­dies du­ties will be look­ing for a sim­i­lar per­for­mance to­day against the Wind­wards.

Dil­lon said: "The skip­per spoke of the won­der­ful vic­to­ry in the last game when he was not here. He told the play­ers that beat­ing Bar­ba­dos in any type of crick­et is a big deal for T&T and they must take their con­fi­dence from this mov­ing for­ward. He has been an in­spi­ra­tion to the play­ers and they are all look­ing for­ward to him com­ing in­to the team for this game."

Back in the team as well is fit-again all-rounder Ter­rence Hinds who has had a very good sea­son. He missed the last game due to a ham­string in­jury and comes look­ing to con­tin­ue his good form.

A no­table ab­sence is for­mer Red Force cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin, who was dropped for the squad's round sev­en match against the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes last week af­ter a dis­as­trous show­ing ver­sus Bar­ba­dos in round six, some two weeks ago. Ramdin had a pair of ducks in the 299-run de­feat.

The 32-year-old bats­man had lashed out at coach Dil­lon, claim­ing that the for­mer West In­dies pac­er cre­at­ed a tox­ic en­vi­ron­ment with­in the team. Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the pair and of­fi­cials of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB), re­cent­ly with the pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath, it was said that the rift was re­solved and both par­ties were com­mit­ted to work to­geth­er and Ramdin was free for the se­lec­tors to con­sid­er him for fu­ture match­es. How­ev­er, Ramdin did not make the cut for to­day's en­counter.

Teams

T&T team: Kyle Hope, Isa­iah Ra­jah, Dar­ren Bra­vo (cap­tain), Joshua Da Sil­va, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Jyd Goolie, Akeal Ho­sein, Im­ran Khan, Uth­man Muham­mad, An­der­son Phillip, Ter­rence Hinds, Cephas Coop­er, Daniel St. Clair.

Wind­wards team: Sunil Am­bris (cap­tain), Roland Cato, Keron Cot­toy, Ken­neth Dem­ber, Lar­ry Ed­ward, An­dre Fletch­er, Kavem Hodge, Ryan John, Obed Mc­Coy, Pre­ston Mc­Sween, Ki­mani Melius, De­von Smith, Em­manuel Stew­art.

Standings

Place*Fran­chise*Pts*M*W*L*D*NR
1*Bar­ba­dos Pride*116*7*5*2*0*0
2*Guyana Jaguars*85.8*7*3*2*2*0
3*Wind­wards Vol­ca­noes*73.6*7*2*2*3*0
4*T&T Red Force*72.2*7*2*2*3*0
5*Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons*68.6*7*2*3*2*0
6*Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes*48.4*7*1*4*2*0

RELATED NEWS

Dillon: Bravo is a big boost for Red Force
BY JONATHAN RAMNANANSINGH (NEWSDAY).

RETURNING TT Red Force captain, Darren Bravo, believes the national team can mirror its recent victorious performance against defending Regional Four-Day champions, Barbados, when they play host to Windward Islands Volcanoes, at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba, on Thursday.

Round eight action bowls off from 10am and features a refreshed but fourth placed (72.2pts) TT unit. Bravo’s re-introduction, following his recent stint for the West Indies One-Day International Series in Sri Lanka, has been welcomed with open arms from coach Mervyn Dillon, and his presence is expected to bolster the squad’s competitive mentality.

During Wednesday’s final training session at the south stadium, Dillon was pleased to have his skipper back in the team and remained quietly confident ahead of the Volcanoes’ encounter.

“Our captain Bravo is a big boost for the squad. He did really well for us before he left and we expect him to continue so. We’re quite positive going into the game and just need to maintain consistency. The talent in this team is exceptional and they’re constantly working on fitness levels to get us to play better cricket for a longer duration,” said Dillon after leading an intense fielding session.

Although the Red Force have returned mixed results in the tourney thus far, Dillon is hoping the guys continue in good stride and produce another stern display against the third-ranked Windward Islands Volcanoes (73.6pts).

He also believes the team is overflowing with talent but intends to select the best suited unit to help see the Red Force over the line and into the competition’s top-three spots.

“Anderson (Phillip) is bowling really well and I’m happy to see him reaping the rewards. Terrance Hinds is also showing good form while spinners ‘Sharky’ (Imran Khan) and Akeal (Hosein) remain consistent. We are looking forward to utilising the resources we have. The relationship between Jason Mohammed and Bravo is also key to our success on the field,” the Red Force coach added.

Bravo congratulated his countrymen on a well-worked win against the Barbados Pride and insisted the squad is solely intent on climbing further up the league ladder. Similarly, the West Indian batsman heaped praises on both young and senior team members for doing their best while he represented the regional squad in Sri Lanka.

“It’s good to be back. With this game here, we just want to do our best and come out on top. We’re approaching each game one at a time and it’s important that we apply the basics and stick to our game plan. It’s all about the process more so than the end result. If we do the important things right the results will take care of itself,” said Bravo after sharing a knock with Isaiah Rajah during Wednesday’s training.

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Corona-who? T&T Cricket March On.
By Colin Murray (Guardian).

You may have had enough of the bad or wor­ry­ing news so a hearty con­grat­u­la­tions to the Red Force on their com­pre­hen­sive 147 run vic­to­ry over run­away lead­ers Bar­ba­dos Pride. It just goes to show that when you put some de­ter­mi­na­tion, ag­gres­sive­ness, heart and fight in your game, there are re­mark­able re­sults that are there for the tak­ing.

Here was a team that was de­stroyed by the Bar­ba­dos Pride and lost by 299 runs in a game just about 3 weeks ago in the 5th round of the tour­na­ment. Off the field, the play­ers, es­pe­cial­ly the ju­nior ones, had to put up with De­nesh Ramdin's an­tics which I have no time for; but it must have desta­bilised the en­tire team. Here was a se­nior, well-re­spect­ed play­er open­ly crit­i­cis­ing the se­lec­tors sug­gest­ing that they didn't want him or some non­sense like that af­ter he had made a pair against the very Bar­ba­dos Pride that swept the Red Force aside for 77 runs. Since then, they de­feat­ed the Lee­ward Is­land Hur­ri­canes on first in­nings and was just 1 wick­et away from win­ning the game out­right; and we know what hap­pened against the Pride.

Crick­et fans must be proud of the young men on the Red Force team. The vet­er­an among them, Ja­son Mo­hammed, af­ter a string of low scores, fi­nal­ly came good and he must con­tin­ue to hold his head up and let the young­sters bat around him. I hope the se­lec­tors per­sist with those tal­ent­ed young men be­cause they showed a dif­fer­ent Red Force in this Bar­ba­dos game. With­out call­ing names and point­ing at play­ers, one can eas­i­ly look through the scores over the sea­son and see the play­ers that are do­ing well. These are the play­ers with a bright fu­ture and if they con­tin­ue to work hard, they can achieve much more than play­ing for the Red Force.

At the mo­ment, the emerg­ing prob­lem seems to be the team play­ing away from Trinidad. At one point, they couldn't win at the Tarou­ba venue. Thank­ful­ly, they have over­come that jinx but our away form is now trou­bling. It's some­thing the tech­ni­cal staff has to look at and craft a so­lu­tion quick­ly. Based on this vic­to­ry, the abil­i­ty is un­doubt­ed­ly there but to win any tour­na­ment, you have to be con­sis­tent and un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Red Force has not been con­sis­tent through­out the sea­son.

They must stay fo­cused and fin­ish the sea­son with vic­to­ries at home to the Wind­ward Is­lands and Guyana Jaguars and let's pay close at­ten­tion to their per­for­mance in Ja­maica and analyse if away from Trinidad has in­deed be­come a prob­lem.

Stay­ing with crick­et, con­grat­u­la­tions to the 500 man Kieron Pol­lard. What an in­spi­ra­tional char­ac­ter this gi­ant is. I re­mem­ber first see­ing him at the re­gion­al lev­el play­ing in a 4-day game (yes, a 4-day game) for Trinidad & To­ba­go at the Crick­et Cen­tre in Cou­va and he scored a cen­tu­ry. I can't re­mem­ber how many balls were lost on the north­ern end of the ground, but what I do re­mem­ber was laugh­ing at the ease in which he cart­ed the balls be­yond the bound­ary.

Pol­lard even­tu­al­ly an­nounced him­self to the world dur­ing the Stan­ford tour­na­ment and the coup de grâce was when he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly de­stroyed New South Wales Blues with a bru­tal in­ning over 10 years ago in the Air­tel Cham­pi­ons League in In­dia. My on­ly re­gret is “Pol­ly” has nev­er played test crick­et.

He could have eas­i­ly em­u­lat­ed the Aus­tralian David Warn­er and been suc­cess­ful at all three for­mats of the game.