T&T’s Red Steel will join the party today when they play their first match of the 2014 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 tournament against the Barbados Tridents, from 10.30 am, at the National Cricket Stadium, St George’s, Grenada. The Red Steel was knocked out at the semi-final stages of the inaugural tournament last year. When they exited in front of their home crowd at the Queen’s Park Oval, skipper Dwayne Bravo promised a better showing this year—and it all starts with today’s match.
Bravo, a doubt coming into this tournament, will take his place at the helm of the team today. According to manager of the Red Steel, Colin Borde: “Dwayne had some injury issues coming into the tournament but today he looked good and will be taking his place on the team tomorrow. “Everyone knows just how important his presence on this team is and he worked very hard to regain fitness in time for this opening match.” The Red Steel had an early morning workout at the National Cricket Stadium yesterday morning and all is reported well in the camp. “The boys are pumped and ready for action. We will have a team meeting later tonight and we will then finalise our plan of attack. At the moment the boys are just itching to get on the park and do their thing. Team morale is very high and this is good when you are starting any tournament.
“We are coming up against a tough Tridents team led by Keiron Pollard but we have a plan for them. The teams are well balanced and the team that makes the least mistakes will be the one taking the title. We need to get out there and play simple, effective cricket and minimise our errors and we will be okay.” The Trident’s team will also include T&T’s Rayad Emrit, Akeal Hosein and Ravi Rampaul, who were all once a part of the powerful Red Force. Borde continued: “The players have played together since youth days and the information they have on one another is priceless.”
The Barbados Tridents made a great start to the tournament in 2013 but peaked too early and in the end, they were dumped out of the tournament by eventual winners Jamaica Tallawahs in the semifinals. The T&T foreign players are coming into this tournament is good form and this is expected to be key for the red, white and black says former West Indies ‘A’ team manager Borde: “The foreign players especially Ross Taylor and Kevin O’Brien played with us last year and they understand the set-up. They are coming into the game with runs under their belts and this is expected to work in our favour. A winning start is essential for us and more so given the fact that we are on the road for our first set of matches.”
Teams
T&T Red Steel
Dwayne Bravo (captain), Ross Taylor, Darren Bravo, Samuel Badree, Sulieman Benn, Kevon Cooper, Nasir Jamshed, Kevin O’Brien, Evin Lewis, Nicholas Pooran, Shannon Gabriel, Fidel Edwards, Jason Mohammed, Kenar Lewis and Delorn Johnson.
Barbados Tridents
Keiron Pollard, Jonathan Carter, Kyle Myers, Dwayne Smith, Shane Dowrich, Ravi Rampaul, Jason Holder, Shoaib Malik, Raymond Reifer, Rayad Emrit, Ashley Nurse, Neil McKenzie, Akeal Hosein, Kirk Edwards and Jeevan Mendis.