Vin­ode Mam­chan

Right-hand­ed bats­man Vikash Mo­han will lead the na­tion­al youth team in the re­gion­al Un­der-19 cham­pi­onships which bowls off on Ju­ly 28, in Bar­ba­dos. Mo­han who start­ed his ca­reer as an off-spin bowler on the na­tion­al U-13 crick­et team, has de­vel­oped in­to a very good bats­man at the U-19 lev­el. He has with him a num­ber of ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers at the youth lev­el and his vice-cap­tain Jo­van Ali, is a reg­u­lar mem­ber of the Pow­er­Gen crick­et team at the Pre­mier­ship lev­el. Coach of the team, Kelvin Williams, said yes­ter­day he thinks this group of play­ers will be very com­pet­i­tive. "We have a very ex­pe­ri­enced team. Sev­er­al of them played in the Pre­mier­ship tour­na­ment and that is quite good. Hav­ing said that, we need the play­ers to gel. We have play­ers who can give you out­stand­ing in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances, but we need to play to­geth­er as a team to see pos­i­tive re­sults."

Williams the for­mer na­tion­al all rounder added: "I have a good feel­ing that we will com­pete well. We are go­ing to fin­ish high but I want us to be cham­pi­ons and to achieve this will take a lot of hard work." T&T fin­ished sec­ond in the league and lim­it­ed overs tour­na­ments last year. To­day the team will con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tions with a train­ing ses­sion at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va. On Thurs­day, they play a three-day match against a Se­lect Na­tion­al XI at the Sir Frank Wor­rell grounds at UWI. Williams said he was hop­ing the se­nior men would have been avail­able but they have their own train­ing with the Flori­da match­es com­ing up. The play­ers will round off their prepa­ra­tions Mon­day and Tues­day, when the TTCB hosts a men­tal prepa­ra­tion camp with Dol­ly and As­so­ciates be­fore the team flies off on Ju­ly 26 for the tour­na­ment.

Team: Vikash Mo­han (Cap­tain), Jo­van Ali (Vice-Cap­tain), Philton Williams, Tevin Robert­son, Al Small, Na­iron Moti­lal, Nicholas Pooran, Ewart Nichol­son, Je­re­my Solozano, Stephen Whar­wood, Andy Gob­in, An­tho­ny Sim­mons, Ad­drien Daniel and Bri­an Christ­mas.

Man­ag­er: Roland Sam­path

Coach: Kelvin Williams