Nicholas Clarke

The T&T Red Force will test its strength against a Bri­an Lara All Star XI, in­clud­ing T&T foot­ball leg­end Dwight Yorke, for­mer South African bats­man Her­schelle Gibbs, for­mer WIPA pres­i­dent Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine and West In­dies play­ers Sunil Nar­ine, Dwayne Bra­vo and Dwayne Smith in the head­line match of to­day's open­ing round of the Twen­ty20 for 50 Crick­et Fes­ti­val at the Queen's Park Oval at 7 pm. This was re­vealed dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing. The match will fol­low the first game be­tween Ja­maica and the Daren Gan­ga All Star XI, which will fea­ture for­mer South African play­ers Justin Kemp and Loots Bosman and past West In­dies play­ers Mervyn Dil­lon, Sulie­man Benn, Ryan Hinds, De­von Smith and Lin­coln Roberts. The open­ing game bowls off at 2 p.m.

Look­ing on from the side­lines will be leg­endary West In­dies all­rounder Sir Garfield Sobers, who will serve as the am­bas­sador and man­ag­er for Lara's team. Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's launch, Lara said the event would be a fit­ting way to cel­e­brate the coun­try's 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, adding that he in­tend­ed to en­ter­tain the Oval crowds once more. "I have been train­ing in Eng­land and Sri Lan­ka re­cent­ly, and I am ready for the chal­lenge. We ex­pect it to be very com­pet­i­tive and are play­ing to win."

Lara re­vealed that for­mer Aus­tralian legspin­ner Shane Warne, who had ear­li­er been re­port­ed to be tak­ing part, had pulled out of the event to spend time with his chil­dren, while Olympic gold medal­ist Us­ain Bolt had ex­pressed an in­ter­est in play­ing but could not com­mit be­cause of the de­mands of his sched­ule. British film star Hugh Grant had al­so asked to join Lara's team though he was de­nied a spot on the ba­sis of his crick­et skills. The three-day tour­na­ment will con­tin­ue to­mor­row with Olympic gold medal­ist Keshorn Wal­cott open­ing the day's play by bowl­ing to Lara. A fur­ther two games will be played fol­lowed by the third place play­off and fi­nal on Sun­day. The match­es will be punc­tu­at­ed by per­for­mances by top lo­cal artistes, while the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T will be ho­n­our­ing 50 na­tion­als who have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of sport.

TEAMS:

Bri­an Lara All Star XI: Bri­an Lara, Her­schelle Gibbs, Dwayne Bra­vo, Richard Smith, Court­ney Browne, Sunil Nar­ine, Pe­dro Collins, Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine, Fi­del Ed­wards, Dwayne Smith, Dwight Yorke, Mario Bel­con, Justin Guillen, Sir Garfield Sobers (Man­ag­er/Am­bas­sador)

Daren Gan­ga All Star XI: Daren Gan­ga, Justin kemp, De­von Smith, Lungile Bosman, Lin­coln Roberts, As­sad Fu­dadin, An­drew Puttick, Sulie­man benn, Kevin Stoute, Ryan Hinds, Mervyn Dil­lon, Khary Pierre, Chaitram Ramjits­ingh (Man­ag­er)

T&T: De­nesh Ramdin, Lendl Sim­mons, Adri­an Barath, Dar­ren Bra­vo, William Perkins, Evin Lewis, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, Kevon Coop­er, Rayad Em­rit, Navin Stew­art, Samuel Badree, Sher­win Gan­ga, Dave Mo­hammed, Omar Khan (Man­ag­er)

Ja­maica: Nkrumah Bon­ner, David Bernard Jr., Ze­ni­effe Fowler, Damion Ja­cobs, Tamar Lam­bert, Ke­nar Lewis, Xavier Mar­shall, An­dre Mc­Carthy, Jamie Mer­chant, Ho­race Miller, Niki­ta Miller, An­drew Richard­son, An­dre Rus­sell, Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie, Dono­van Ben­net (Man­ag­er).

TOUR­NA­MENT SCHED­ULE

To­day

Ja­maica vs Daren Gan­ga XI, 2:30 pm

T&T vs Bri­an Lara XI, 7 pm

Sat­ur­day

T&T vs Daren Gan­ga XI, 2.30 pm

Ja­maica vs Bri­an Lara XI, 7 pm

Sun­day

3rd Place Play-off, 2:30 pm

Fi­nal, 7 pm