Vin­ode Mam­chan

For­mer cap­tain and mid­dle or­der bats­man Daren Gan­ga has been dropped from the T&T team for the re­gion­al T20 crick­et se­ries, be­gin­ning Jan­u­ary 9 in An­tigua. The T&T Crick­et Board (T&TCB) yes­ter­day re­vealed the 14-man squad to de­fend the re­gion­al ti­tle. Al­so omit­ted are left arm wrist spin­ner Dave Mo­hammed and fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel. Eight mem­bers of the team are cur­rent­ly on West In­dies du­ty in In­dia. They are Ravi Ram­paul, Lendl Sim­mons, Sunil Nar­ine, Dar­ren Sam­my, Ke­iron Pol­lard, Adri­an Barath, skip­per De­nesh Ramdin and Ja­son Mo­hammed. Sev­en of the play­ers will re­turn on Mon­day to link up with the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers.

Pol­lard is ex­pect­ed to leave­for Aus­tralia, where he will be tak­ing part in the Big Bash se­ries. Those at home who have been se­lect­ed are Dwayne Bra­vo, Justin Guillen, Kevon Coop­er, Sher­win Gan­ga, Samuel Badree and Rayad Em­rit. Bra­vo will leave to­day for Aus­tralia to take part in their Big Bash be­fore re­turn­ing on Jan­u­ary 7 to join the team for the re­gion­al se­ries. Chair­man of se­lec­tors Dud­nath Ramkessoon ex­plained that Daren Gan­ga could not fit in­to the cur­rent team set-up. "Af­ter re­sign­ing as cap­tain, we looked at where Daren could fit in­to the team but it was dif­fi­cult to of­fer him a place." Con­tact­ed, Gan­ga, who fin­ished sec­ond in the re­gion­al T20 av­er­ages in 2011, said he had no com­ment to make.

Ramkessoon de­scribed the team as very strong and said he ex­pects them to do well. "We have a very strong team and if you look care­ful­ly at the set-up, we are one of the best teams in the Caribbean. How­ev­er, be­ing the strongest team does not win you the ti­tle. You have to pull to­geth­er and fo­cus on the job at hand." The team will con­tin­ue to train at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) on a dai­ly ba­sis and will take a break for Christ­mas be­fore tak­ing part in the T20 Fes­ti­val at the end of De­cem­ber at Guaracara Park, Pointe-a-Pierre.

Team

De­nesh Ramdin (capt), Adri­an Barath, Lendl Sim­mons, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Dwayne Bra­vo, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Rayad Em­rit, Samuel Badree, Sher­win Gan­ga, Justin Guillen, Kevon Coop­er, Ravi Ram­paul, Sunil Nar­ine and Ke­iron Pol­lard. Man­ag­er Omar Khan, coach David Williams.