Vin­ode Mam­chan

The Min­istry of Sport yes­ter­day hand­ed over iPads to the na­tion­al crick­eters, who are bound for In­dia to take part in the Nokia Cham­pi­ons League. On hand to present the crick­eters with their gifts was Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts. The play­ers were al­so pre­sent­ed with shoes by Cadel Trad­ing Ltd and Oak­ley sun­glass­es cour­tesy Op­tometrists To­day. Roberts called on the team to give a big ef­fort and to make up for the ab­sence of stars Ke­iron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo, who will not be rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try at the tour­na­ment. Both play­ers will be turn­ing out for their In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) fran­chis­es. "You are not play­ing with the likes of Ke­iron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo and should serve as a mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor to do your best and make up for the loss. Every­one needs to step up their game to the next lev­el and bat­tle well for your coun­try. "Re­cent­ly you have had some suc­cess in win­ning match­es but don't take any­thing for grant­ed in In­dia. You need to go out there and work hard at each game and bring it home."

Roberts, who is coach to na­tion­al Olympic swim­mer George Bovell III said from his ex­pe­ri­ence as a coach he can tell that the pres­sure would be im­mense but the play­ers have to be men­tal­ly strong and they will get through. Na­tion­al cap­tain Daren Gan­ga in re­sponse thanked the min­istry of Sport and all the oth­er spon­sors for com­ing on board and promised to give a good show in In­dia. "Last time around we got to the fi­nals on­ly to lose out to New South Blues but this time around we are go­ing to try and do even bet­ter. We are not go­ing to get in over our­selves, as we know the match­es are go­ing to be tough but we are con­fi­dent.

"We are go­ing to take each match one at a time and build as we progress in the tour­na­ment." T&T will en­ter the qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment from Sep­tem­ber 19, where they will take on Rahu­na from Sri Lan­ka and Leices­ter­shire of Eng­land the next day. There are six teams in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion stage and they are put in­to two groups of three.The win­ners of the group plus the best sec­ond place will move on in the tour­na­ment.