BRIDGETOWN-Re­gion­al play­ers will be look­ing to fol­low up the enor­mous suc­cess of the Caribbean Twen­ty20 tour­na­ment with an equal­ly com­pelling Re­gion­al 4-Day tour­na­ment which opens to­day. The CT20 with its fast-paced ac­tion at­tract­ed large crowds last month to the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground in An­tigua and the Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos – and re­gion­al of­fi­cials will be hop­ing that the play­ers can lift their stan­dards to draw sim­i­lar at­ten­dances to the longer for­mat. In the open­ing round, reign­ing four-time cham­pi­ons Ja­maica face Wind­ward Is­lands at Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica, Com­bined Cam­pus­es & Col­leges play new­ly-crowned CT20 cham­pi­ons Trinidad & To­ba­go at the Three Ws Oval in Bar­ba­dos, and Guyana meet Lee­ward Is­lands at Wind­sor Park in Do­mini­ca. In Kingston, the ab­sence of West In­dies cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my for Wind­wards has over­shad­owed the start of Ja­maica's de­fence of the ti­tle for a fourth straight year. Sam­my did not trav­el to the Ja­maica cap­i­tal with the sub-re­gion­al side and coach Ian Allen said he was be­ing rest­ed at the re­quest of West In­dies Crick­et Board of­fi­cials, con­cerned about his work­load ahead of a tax­ing sched­ule in the com­ing months.

There have been many the­o­ries about Sam­my's ab­sence and dis­card­ed West In­dies open­er Chris Gayle tweet­ed about his dis­ap­point­ment that the West In­dies cap­tain was un­avail­able. Gayle tweet­ed: "It's a shame the W.I. cap­tain @dar­ren­sam­my88 CHICK­EN out!! Was look­ing for­ward to the match up just like in the nets! Sad.com." Wind­wards of­fi­cials are not too con­cerned about Sam­my's ab­sence. They be­lieve they still have enough re­sources in their squad to make life dif­fi­cult for the Ja­maicans. Since the start of the new mil­len­ni­um, Ja­maica have on­ly lost twice on home soil against the Wind­wards, so they will start as over­whelm­ing favourites. Gayle will be the head­line act, look­ing to post a mon­u­men­tal score to send a strong mes­sage to the WICB with his con­tin­ued ex­ile from the West In­dies team, but oth­ers like Bren­dan Nash, Bren­ton Parch­ment, Dono­van Pagon and An­drew Richard­son al­so have some per­son­al demons to dis­miss. Bowl­ing again could be the Wind­wards' strength, but it is their bat­ting which has con­sis­tent­ly let them down over the year, so play­ers like De­von Smith and An­dre Fletch­er, in par­tic­u­lar, will have to step up to help them punch above their weight. In Roseau, the em­bat­tled Guyanese will be look­ing to over­come the brouha­ha over the run­ning of the game at home and look to start the tour­na­ment strong­ly against the Lee­wards. These two sides have lan­guished near the bot­tom of the ta­ble in re­cent years and they will be look­ing to re­verse their for­tunes. Guyana have dom­i­nat­ed this fix­ture since the turn of the cen­tu­ry, win­ning six of the 15 match­es the two sides have con­test­ed.

Lee­wards man­aged a 10-run vic­to­ry three years ago in Nevis and have on­ly led the Guyanese once in the four drawn match­es they have played since 2000. Re­calls for Sew­nar­ine Chat­ter­goon and fel­low left-han­der Nars­ingh De­onar­ine hard­ly makes up for the ab­sence of Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and Ramnaresh Sar­wan due to var­i­ous rea­sons. But the two left-han­ders give the bat­ting a stiffer look than last year, when a num­ber of young play­ers were tried and failed mis­er­ably. Lee­wards too, have in­clud­ed two sea­soned play­ers that adds a bit more depth to their bat­ting with open­er Shane Jef­fers and all-rounder Toni­to Wil­lett com­ing back af­ter miss­ing re­cent as­sign­ments. In Cave Hill, a keen con­test is ex­pect­ed be­tween CCC and T&T in a match to be con­test­ed un­der the lights and with a pink ball (SEE PRE­VIEW). T&T will be en­er­gised by their re­cent CT20 tri­umph, but the venue has not been a hap­py hunt­ing ground for them. There is not much to sep­a­rate the two sides over the last four sea­sons with each win­ning two of the five match­es they have played.