Vin­ode Mam­chan

The na­tion­al crick­eters who will be fac­ing the Com­bined Cam­pus­es and Col­leges (CCC) in their first match of the re­gion­al First Class se­ries in Bar­ba­dos from Fri­day, have giv­en the as­sur­ance that they will play with the same pride and pas­sion that brought them vic­to­ry in the Caribbean T20 crick­et se­ries last week. The play­ers left last night at 7.35pm for Bar­ba­dos and will stay at the Gold­en Sands Ho­tel for the du­ra­tion of the match. To­day, they will have a prac­tice ses­sion at the Three Ws Oval. Man­ag­er of the team Omar Khan said yes­ter­day his play­ers had an ear­ly ses­sion at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC). He said fol­low­ing this, there was a team meet­ing in which the se­nior play­ers spoke of a se­ri­ous hunger to win the ti­tle. "Dur­ing our team meet­ing yes­ter­day, skip­per De­nesh Ramdin, Ke­iron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo all spoke of hav­ing a re­al pas­sion when play­ing for their coun­try and go­ing af­ter the ti­tle. "The se­nior guys have re­al­ly ral­lied be­hind De­nesh since he took over and we are see­ing the re­sults. They won the Re­gion­al T20 and they can now win the four-day ti­tle. They see now as the best time to do that.

"The T20 win has served as a con­fi­dence boost­er and al­though it is a dif­fer­ent for­mat, they are con­fi­dent and this will serve them good. "We have tar­get­ed CCC to get full points and we are look­ing to get a win start­ing Fri­day."

T&T will meet the CCC at the Three Ws Oval in Bar­ba­dos. The game will be played as a day/night af­fair and with the pink ball. Khan added that the play­ers have no is­sue with the pink ball. "They have played with the pink ball at nights be­fore and they are com­fort­able with it. I see no need to wor­ry about the use of the pink ball." T&T failed to progress to the fi­nals last year af­ter their se­mi-fi­nal clash against Ja­maica end­ed in a no-re­sult. The Ja­maicans were al­lowed to progress to the fi­nals by virtue of win­ning the head to head clash be­tween the two teams on first in­nings. T&T had more points in the pre­lim­i­nary se­ries and de­cid­ed to take the mat­ter to court. A lo­cal Judge Vaashist Kok­er­am al­lowed the fi­nals to go ahead and the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) dropped the mat­ter. T&T team: De­nesh Ramdin (cap­tain), Rayad Em­rit, Lendl Sim­mons, Kieron Pol­lard, Adri­an Barath, Sunil Nar­ine, Dwayne Bra­vo, Im­ran Khan, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Shan­non Gabriel, Ja­son Mo­hammed, At­i­ba Allert and Yan­nic Cari­ah. Omar Khan, man­ag­er, Kelvin Williams, coach, Oba Gul­ston, physio and Ronald Rogers, train­er.