Mer­ry Boys wick­et­keep­er/bats­man, Amir Jan­goo has be­come the sec­ond Un­der-19 play­er to be called up to the Red Force train­ing squad.

He joins fast bowler An­der­son Phillip in the train­ing squad and will go straight in­to ac­tion in the first prac­tice game at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre, Bal­main, Cou­va.

The Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent re­vealed that he was elat­ed about his in­clu­sion in­to the Red Force set­up af­ter re­cent­ly com­pet­ing at the West In­dies Un­der-19 Cham­pi­onships in Ja­maica.

"When Kelvin Williams called and in­vit­ed me to the Red Force train­ing it was a feel­ing I could not ex­plain to be hon­est. This was some­thing I al­ways dreamt of and it was just out of this world," said Jan­goo.

He added: "My fam­i­ly was re­al­ly hap­py for me when they found out the news but at the same time they knew this is just the start. They let me know that this is the be­gin­ning of my jour­ney and I need to put in the hard work."

The for­mer West In­dies Un­der-19 play­er stressed that it is key for him to cap­i­talise on this op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther his crick­et­ing ca­reer.

"I would like to go out there and work ex­treme­ly hard, per­form well and show­case my tal­ent. I want the coach­es to see my abil­i­ty and I can do this by scor­ing runs and be­ing ef­fi­cient be­hind the stumps so the se­lec­tors know I am a long-term op­tion," said Jan­goo.

The in­clu­sion of Jan­goo to the Red Force train­ing squad will in­ten­si­fy the wick­et­keep­ing com­pe­ti­tion. Cur­rent­ly, Steven Kat­wa­roo is the Red Force's first choice wick­et­keep­er with De­nesh Ramdin play­ing when not on West In­dies du­ty and Nicholas Pooran re­cov­er­ing from in­jury.

"I think the wick­et­keep­ing race is very tough and the Red Force team has a top class wick­et­keep­er in Steven Kat­wa­roo. It will be a very in­ter­est­ing com­pe­ti­tion but I am up for it and I am very mo­ti­vat­ed," said Jan­goo.

He con­tin­ued: "Trinidad and To­ba­go has a lot of top class wick­et­keep­ers such as De­nesh Ramdin and Nicholas Pooran so there is a lot of com­pe­ti­tion, but at the same time it is about how you per­form and the hard work that you put in. I think once you put in the hard work you will reap the re­wards. Be­sides my glove work I am aim­ing to score runs and show my abil­i­ty with the bat."

The T&T Un­der-19 vice-cap­tain re­vealed that he is look­ing for­ward to meet­ing up with Un­der-19 team-mate Phillip at Red Force train­ing as they make the tran­si­tion from youth crick­et to the se­nior lev­el.

"Me and Andy have a re­al­ly close re­la­tion­ship. I have been play­ing crick­et with him since the Un­der-13 lev­el, so me and Andy have a re­al­ly strong bond. We al­ways mo­ti­vate each oth­er and we un­der­stand each oth­er such as our strengths and weak­ness­es from play­ing to­geth­er for so long," said Jan­goo.

He added: "Go­ing through this ex­pe­ri­ence with Andy means a lot to me be­cause I think this is some­thing we will cher­ish and we will now be shar­ing the dress­ing room with first-class play­ers and that will be some­thing spe­cial. We will al­so have first class coach­es with us and just go­ing through this new and ex­cit­ing phase with a close friend will be some­thing spe­cial."