Vin­ode Mam­chan

It's Car­ni­val time in Lauder­hill, Flori­da, USA as over 30,000 tick­ets have been sold for the his­toric West In­dies ver­sus New Zealand T20 clash at the Broward Re­gion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um in Lauder­hill to­day. Yes­ter­day as both teams were mak­ing their fi­nal prepa­ra­tions at the venue a num­ber of West In­di­an fans were at the ground tak­ing in the ac­tion. Some were seek­ing pho­tographs from their he­roes, while oth­ers were con­tent­ed with au­to­graphs. In­for­ma­tion com­ing from the Broward Crick­et Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee was that over 30,000 tick­ets have been sold for the match to­day, as well as to­mor­row. There is a mas­sive grass mound where the par­ty stand will be and the cost of tick­ets for that area was US$125 all in­clu­sive. A lot of fans were seek­ing those tick­ets yes­ter­day as they the main at­trac­tion on the en­ter­tain­ment side of things, was T&T's Rik­ki Jai. On the crick­et side of things both cap­tains sound­ed con­fi­dent that a good dis­play is in the mak­ing, as they try to mar­ket the game in the US. West In­dies cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my said his team is build­ing to­wards the T20 World Cup lat­er this year and will be look­ing for the right mix as they move for­ward. "Our team will be out in full force to per­form well as this is the last two T20 match­es we have be­fore the World Cup in Sri Lan­ka. The boys have had a good hit out in the mid­dle to­day and we are look­ing to put the Eng­land se­ries be­hind us and move on to bet­ter things. "We have a num­ber of great T20 play­ers and we are look­ing to show up for the match and give our fans here a re­al big win. We have felt at home since our ar­rival here and even the man­goes here taste just like the ones in St. Lu­cia."

When asked how the team has been gelling since the ar­rival of Chris Gayle, Sam­my had this to say :"The team has al­ways gelled well, whether Chris has been on it or not.We are a unit­ed team and we are play­ing as one." Sam­my al­so added that there may be a need for the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) to bring on a sports psy­chol­o­gist full time. "I think that it is some­thing that the WICB should look in­to and I am sure they will be­cause they look at any­thing that is ben­e­fi­cial to the team. "I have hap­py to say that the team has been work­ing on the men­tal side of things and hope­ful­ly we can elim­i­nate those crazy mo­ments from our play in this up­com­ing se­ries.' Sam­my's op­po­site num­ber Ross Tay­lor said there are a num­ber of dan­ger­ous play­ers on the West In­dies and team that they will be aware off. "They have Chris Gayle, Ke­iron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo and these are fan­tas­tic T20 play­ers. We have to get at them ear­ly and take charge. They al­so have Sunil Nar­ine who looks like he would be a world class bowler, so we have our hands filled." New Zealand has a num­ber of young and un­tried play­ers in their ranks but Tay­lor sees the re­fresh­ing side of this :"We have a num­ber of youngs com­ing through for us that the West In­dies would not know too much about but this is good for our crick­et. "With the T20 World Cup com­ing up, we have not fi­nalised our team and hence we are look­ing at a num­ber of them. We still have the ex­pe­ri­ence in there with the world's num­ber one T20 bats­man Mar­tin Gup­till at the top of the or­der." The weath­er con­di­tion in the Flori­da State is wel­com­ing news for both teams, as New Zealand left home with the tem­per­a­ture hov­er­ing around two de­grees, while the West In­dies are com­ing from Eng­land, where it was al­so very cold. Yes­ter­day the tem­per­a­ture was in the late 30s and it was record­ed as the hottest day of the year in the US in this year.

How­ev­er, re­gard­less of the heat, noth­ing will stop this par­ty to­day. First ball will be de­liv­ered at 2pm. In­ter­est­ing these two teams have met on three oc­ca­sions with two match­es end­ing in ties. The West In­dies lost the first game that end­ed in the tie on a bowl off but won the oth­er in two su­per overs.

Squads

West In­dies squad : Dar­ren Sam­my (cap­tain), Dwayne Smith, Dwayne Bra­vo,

John­son Charles, Fi­del Ed­wards, Chris Gayle, Sunil Nar­ine, Kieron Pol­lard,

De­nesh Ramdin, Ravi Ram­paul, Mar­lon Samuels, Lendl Sim­mons and Samuel Badree.

New Zealand squad: Ross Tay­lor (cap­tain), B.J. Watling (wk), Mar­tin Gup­till,

Doug Bracewell, Dean Brown­lie, An­drew El­lis, Daniel Fly­nn, Ron­nie Hi­ra,

Tom Lath­am, Nathan Mc­Cul­lum, Kyle Mills, Rob Nicol, Ja­cob Oram, Tim Southee and Kane Williamson.