Vin­ode Mam­chan

Na­tion­al cap­tain Daren Gan­ga will re­ceive the med­ical re­port on his in­jured hand to­day and would then have an idea how far along he is in terms of be­ing fit to face Bar­ba­dos, in the open­ing round of the re­gion­al First Class se­ries from Feb­ru­ary 4 at Guaracara Park. Gan­ga split the web­bing be­tween his thumb and in­dex fin­ger on his right hand dur­ing T&T's se­mi-fi­nal clash against Ja­maica in the tri­umphant Caribbean T20 se­ries on Sat­ur­day night. On Wednes­day he met with Dr. Anil Goopeesingh who ex­am­ined the in­jury and changed the dress­ing.

Gan­ga said yes­ter­day he re­mained un­cer­tain as to his sit­u­a­tion for the Bar­ba­dos match. "We are due to get the re­port from the doc­tor to­mor­row (to­day) and we will then have an idea as to how bad the sit­u­a­tion is. He has asked to see me again next Tues­day and prob­a­bly then we would have some­thing def­i­nite."

Team man­ag­er Omar Khan said it was too ear­ly to rule out the in­spi­ra­tional cap­tain from the open­ing clash. "There is still time for the in­jury to heal. How­ev­er, we can­not say for sure he will play but we can­not rule out his par­tic­i­pa­tion."

Khan said Gan­ga will be sore­ly missed in that open­ing game if he can­not over­come the in­jury. "We have al­ready lost the se­nior men to West In­dies du­ty and los­ing Daren will put the team un­der pres­sure. I hope he re­cov­ers and can take his place in the team. "He has a great record against Bar­ba­dos and we would re­al­ly like to have him for the game." Khan said his team is ready for ac­tion and will be able to shift fo­cus from the T20 to the longer form of the game. "The play­ers go to camp next Tues­day and they will be look­ing to ad­just their fo­cus to the longer for­mat of the game."