Vin­ode Mam­chan

All rounder Navin Stew­art says he is the on­ly link be­tween the T&T Red Force and To­ba­go.

To­ba­go-born Stew­art made the in­au­gur­al Cham­pi­ons League trip with the Red Force back in 2009 and is now back in the mix, af­ter an ex­cel­lent do­mes­tic sea­son with both bat and ball. His ef­forts forced the na­tion­al se­lec­tors to look in his di­rec­tion and now he is in In­dia wait­ing to make his coun­try proud.

Ac­cord­ing to Moo­sai Sports play­er: "It's al­ways a plea­sure rep­re­sent­ing my coun­try. I'm elat­ed to be back on the team. Be­ing off the team, I went back to my club and worked at my skills, had a re­al­ly good club sea­son 2013 and the work put in en­abled me to get back on the team."

Stew­art be­lieves that T&T can reach far in this year's com­pe­ti­tion :"One thing we al­ways thrive on is our one-ness. Our team spir­it is what gets us through the tight sit­u­a­tions.

"I am ready to do my part, as my form has not been bet­ter. I think I'm play­ing the best I've ever played at this mo­ment. It is nice to have both as­pects of my game com­ing to­geth­er at the right time. That would be a plus for our team be­cause I can pro­vide the low­er or­der bat­ting im­pe­tus at the end of the in­nings with big shots and bowl mean­ing­ful spells when we take the field."

Pri­or to leav­ing for the tour­na­ment, Stew­art re­turned fig­ures of 4-0-15-0, 4-0-26-0 and 4-0-19-2 in three games against Guyana and the Wind­ward Is­lands.

Now he is in In­dia, Stew­art is ready for ac­tion and look­ing to make a dif­fer­ence.

"Its al­ways a nerve wreck­ing ex­pe­ri­ence play­ing in front of crowds in ex­cess of 40,000, but with the nec­es­sary ex­pe­ri­ence gained over the years we should be good.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly we will need the ex­pe­ri­enced guys around as well as a knowl­edge­able staff to help one deal with those but­ter­flies.

"We are go­ing to take it game by game, win by win and try to go deep in­to the tour­na­ment. Last time I was there in 2009, we played six games, won five but lost the all im­por­tant one, the fi­nals. So I'm hop­ing and be­ing op­ti­mistic that we can go one bet­ter this time around.

"That would be even more spe­cial as this is the last time we would be play­ing as the Red Force which is a bit­ter/sweet feel­ing. All in all, we are go­ing to give it our best shot to make our coun­try proud and per­son­al­ly for me, the peo­ple of To­ba­go as I'm the di­rect link in mak­ing this team Trinidad and To­ba­go."

The Red Force land­ed in In­dia on Wednes­day and checked in­to the Radis­son Blu Ho­tel. Lat­er, they were tak­en for a ses­sion of aer­o­bics in the gym, in or­der to re­cov­er from two and a half days of trav­el.

Yes­ter­day, the guys had a shirt and bat sign­ing ses­sion at 10am, a team meet­ing at 11am and then took to the field for their first prac­tice ses­sion at 5.30pm.

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