Nicholas Clarke

T&T cap­tain Daren Gan­ga says that he is more fo­cused on lead­ing the Red Force in the up­com­ing Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20 than the pos­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing re­called to the West In­dies team. Gan­ga, who played the last of his 48 Tests in ear­ly 2008, was one of the top bats­men in the re­cent­ly-con­clud­ed Re­gion­al Four Day Com­pe­ti­tion. His tal­ly of 620 runs was the fourth high­est in the tour­na­ment, hav­ing played two match­es less than the top three, while his av­er­age of 77.50 was the best among bats­men with over 350 runs. In all he has scored 10,132 First Class runs at 37.38, while in Tests he has man­aged 2160 at 25.71.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs' Sym­po­sium for Sec­ondary School Lead­ers at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann's yes­ter­day, the 32-year-old said that while he would wel­come the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent the West In­dies again, his role as T&T skip­per was his top pri­or­i­ty. "At this point in time, it would be a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for me to play for the West In­dies and as much as I think about it some­times, that is not my main fo­cus. Yes I will be ready for it, but those things are be­yond my con­trol and I spend less time and en­er­gy think­ing about it. For now we've got a very big op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent T&T again in the 2011 Cham­pi­ons League in In­dia and that is where my fo­cus is right now."

Gan­ga, who is cur­rent­ly study­ing to be­come a lawyer, added that be­ing over­looked for in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty would not dis­cour­age him from con­tin­u­ing his First Class ca­reer. "The suc­cess in re­gion­al crick­et is some­thing that I've thor­ough­ly en­joyed. Any­body in­volved in sport would tell you that the rea­son they're in­volved is be­cause of their pas­sion and love for the game. I'm still mo­ti­vat­ed to train and to do well, and for now it's about en­joy­ing my crick­et." An­oth­er source of sat­is­fac­tion, he said, had been help­ing to guide younger play­ers to go on to play crick­et at the high­est lev­el. "One of the fun­da­men­tal things about lead­ing a team is reach­ing out and as­sist­ing in the de­vel­op­ment of young tal­ent and I can boast that Barath and Bra­vo re­ceived a very warm re­cep­tion com­ing in­to the T&T team, and we can all see what they have gone on to ac­com­plish."

The day's speak­ers al­so in­clud­ed Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Anil Roberts, West In­dies Women's cap­tain Meris­sa Aguilleira and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er Don La Fou­cade. Guardian Sports Ed­i­tor Valenti­no Singh, opened the event which is in its 12th year and urged some 200 stu­dents to use the lessons over the four-day event to as­sist in be­com­ing bet­ter per­sons. Singh, chair­man of The Sports Desk, which is host­ing the four-day men­tor­ship pro­gramme for lead­ers in the sec­ondary school said the lessons learnt must be tak­en back in­to the schools, com­mu­ni­ties and homes. "You have been se­lect­ed to be here be­cause of your lead­er­ship skills so make sure when you leave, you have enough to share with those with whom you come in­to con­tact." Aguil­liera de­scribed her rise from Moru­ga in­to the West In­dies women's cap­tain­cy while La Fou­cade gave a de­liv­ery of the val­ue of each child be­ing him/her­self.

To­day's pro­gramme will fea­ture ju­nior world cham­pi­on in the 400m Je­hue Gor­don, Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2011 Karene As­che and for­mer West In­dies fast bowler An­tho­ny Gray.