Red Force look for redemption
By STEPHON NICHOLAS Saturday, April 19 2014
newsday
AFTER missing out on the WICB President’s Trophy, the Red Force will get another shot at silverware when they battle the Windward Islands today in the semifinal of the WICB Regional Four-Day competition at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain. The match bowls off at 10 am.
TT are coming off a disappointing draw against Guyana in the final match of the round robin phase which saw them finish just two points behind eventual champions Barbados. A win would have been sufficient to hand TT the President’s Trophy but rain on the final day denied them the opportunity to push for an outright result.
National coach Kelvin Williams noted yesterday that his players have switched off what happened in Guyana and are looking forward to this new challenge and a chance at the George Headley/Everton Weekes Trophy.
“The motivation and intensity going into this game is huge. It wasn’t difficult to motivate them because they knew if rain did not interrupt (the Guyana game) they would have been champions. They’ve switched off what happened there and are switched on for this game,” he explained.
Williams yesterday warned his players of the threat of Windwards off-spinner Shane Shillingford who recently returned from an ICC suspension due to an illegal bowling action. The TT batsmen endured a torrid time against the leg-spin of Guyana’s Devendra Bishoo who took a career-best 15 wickets in the match.
“Shillingford is a fantastic bowler and we know what he has achieved (in his career). Bishoo is slightly different in that he’s a leg-spinner and Shillingford is an off-spinner but the guys have played him before and know what to expect. We don’t want the same thing to happen again though,” he stated.
Williams believes, however, that his team holds the edge in the contest as they are playing at home where they have a perfect record of four wins so far including a massive 186-run victory over the Windwards in their first game of the season.
“It’s (home advantage) going to be huge. This is like a final for us here. We can count on home advantage but we have to play according to situations. We have to display the level of consistency that we did for the previous games at home this season,” he explained.
The TT coach also hailed the inclusion of captain and wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin for the match as he is expected to boost the batting line-up and add more experience to the confident squad.
Meanwhile, Windwards captain Liam Sebastien backed his team’s chances of pulling off the upset against their hosts.
“We are coming off a bye last week, so everyone is fresh and ready to go,” said Sebastien. “We have a few players coming into the side that did not play earlier in the season and this should be a boost.
“We have to play to our strengths. Our bowling is our strength and they have been doing exceptionally well, but we also have to bat well, and this has been our challenge this season. There have been some individual performances, but we have not been able to bat consistently well as a team.”
TT squad: Denesh Ramdin (captain), Lendl Simmons, Darren Bravo, Imran Khan, Evin Lewis, Rayad Emrit, Shannon Gabriel, Akeal Hosein, Jason Mohammed, Marlon Richards, Ancil Bhaggan, Adrian Barath and Ricky Jaipaul.
Windwards squad: Liam Sebastien (captain), Sunil Ambris, Miles Bascombe, Johnson Charles, Romel Currency, Delorn Johnson, Keddy Lesporis, Mervin Matthew, Nelon Pascal, Kenroy Peters, Shane Shillingford, Devon Smith and Tyrone Theophile.
