Justin Guillen con­tin­ued his rich form as na­tion­al tri­als to se­lect the T&T first class team con­tin­ued at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Cou­va yes­ter­day.

Guillen, play­ing for the Amit Jag­ger­nauth team, slammed an im­pe­ri­ous 158 fol­low­ing his two hun­dreds on the week­end in the pre­vi­ous tri­al match.

He has now count­ed three cen­turies in his last three in­nings and now seems cer­tain to have locked down a spot as open­er for T&T when the re­gion­al first class se­ries gets go­ing in mid-Feb­ru­ary.

Guillen played a very classy knock and was joined at three fig­ures by Isi­ah Ra­jah who count­ed 146 as well. The Queen's Park duo added 277 runs in part­ner­ship, and while they bat­ted the op­po­si­tion had to an­swer. When both fi­nal­ly fell, the Amit Jag­ger­nauth XI closed the day on 344 for nine. A to­tal of 79 overs were bowled on the day, as smoke from a bush fire across the high­way sus­pend­ed play for a while.

The pick of the bowlers for the Gibran Mo­hammed XI was leg-spin­ner Im­ran Khan who fin­ished with fig­ures of 7/72. Al­so among the wick­ets was Queen's Park all-rounder Akiel Ho­sein who took 2/77.

The tri­al con­tin­ues to­day and ends to­mor­row. The T&T se­nior team na­tion­al prepa­ra­tion com­mit­tee has a num­ber of match­es lined up for the lo­cal play­ers be­fore set­tling on the fi­nal team.

Mean­while, af­ter tri­al match­es this month, Cana­da's se­nior crick­eters will be com­ing for a nine-day tour. The squad, which ar­rives Feb­ru­ary 1, will play a two-day game and a pair of one-day and twen­ty/20 match­es against the twin-is­land re­pub­lic's na­tion­al side.

Coach Gus Lo­gie, who rep­re­sent­ed T & T and the West In­dies, played a key role in or­gan­is­ing the tour.

"It will help us with our prepa­ra­tion for up­com­ing World Crick­et League (WCL) and In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Cup match­es in Dubai in March," said Lo­gie, who is with the Cana­di­an team for a sec­ond stint af­ter coach­ing them at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. "It will al­so as­sist the Trinida­di­ans to get ready for the West In­dies Crick­et Board's four-day and Su­per 50 tour­na­ments start­ing in the next three weeks and boost the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries."

Af­ter a short break for the Christ­mas hol­i­days, the na­tion­al side has re­sumed in­door train­ing un­der the watch­ful eyes of na­tion­al high per­for­mance man­ag­er, David Pat­ter­son and for­mer Cana­di­an cap­tain, In­gle­ton Liburd.

"The guys have been do­ing a lot of con­di­tion­ing work, but they need to get out­side and get match fit and ready be­fore we head to Dubai," said Lo­gie, who re­turned to Toron­to two weeks ago. "We al­so a have a few play­ers out­side the Greater Toron­to Area that we need to get in­to the fold, see where they are at and get every­body on the same page."

TRI­AL SCORES

Jag­ger­nauth XI 344/9 (Justin Guillen 158, Isi­ah Ra­jah 146, Im­ran Khan 7/72, Akiel Ho­sein 2/77) vs Gibran Mo­hammed XI.

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