Big guns battle at Queen’s Park Oval

When T&T takes to the field to battle Guyana today in their third round regional four-day clash at the Queen’s Park Oval, they will be armed with eight West Indies players. A real contrast to what they had last week when only one of the eight (Adrian Barath) was available to play against the Leewards. Despite this, T&T went on to win the match. They will be looking to their stars to shine bright against the Guyanese, who will also boast their Test players as well.

Lining up for T&T will be Denesh Ramdin, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Keiron Pollard, Adrian Barath, Lendl Simmons, Shannon Gabriel and Sunil Narine. The Guyanese will counter this with Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Verasammy Permaul, Devendra Bishoo, Assad Fudadin and Narsingh Deonarine. The South Americans will also have the added inspiration of an historic father-son combination with the inclusion of Chanderpaul’s son Tagenarine in the squad.

Manager of the T&T team Omar Khan said this clash is a great advertisement of the talent available in the region. “We have all the big boys from both teams showing and I am really looking forward, as I am sure all of T&T is with great anticipation. “Our team is ready for action, with the way cricket is being scheduled now, the guys are always match ready with all the cricket around. What would be key for us is the players switching to the 4-day mode (in) a surfeit of instant cricket.

“We are however confident that they can do this well because they are professionals and they want to have a long time in the middle with the Zimbabwe Test series ahead. We need to bring out our A game to stop this very talented Guyana team. They may have just six points from three matches but you cannot look at that. They would have played those game without their star players, so tomorrow is a clean slate and they would be coming hard at us.”

The T&T team is without fast bowler Ravi Rampaul who is resting a niggling injury and also man of the match in their last game Yannick Cariah, who is off to represent the High Performance Centre (HPC) against the touring Zimbabweans in Barbados. The pitch at the Oval looks a typical one with something in it for the fast men early on and assistance for the spinners as the match progresses. T&T will have in their set-up mystery man Narine and Khan is hoping for a big hand from him. “A lot of focus will be on Sunil. He has been a match winner for T&T in the limited number of 4-day matches he has played for us and we are looking forward to him leading the bowling effort.”

Guyana, on the other hand, will be hoping skipper Verasammy returns to form with the ball and that he can provide assistance to the in form leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo. T&T is currently fourth in the standings with 12 points from two matches, with one loss and a win, while the Guyanese have endured a horrible start to their season losing two and drawing one of their three matches to date. They are in fifth position with six points. The match starts at 10 am.

Teams:

T&T: Denesh Ramdin (capt), Adrian Barath, Lendl Simmons, Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Keiron Pollard, Imran Khan, Rayad Emrit, Sunil Narine, Shannon Gabriel, Amit Jaggernauth, Kavesh Kantasingh and Yannick Ottley.
Guyana: Verasammy Permaul (capt), Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Assad Fudadin, Leon Johnson, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Derwain Christian, Devendra Bishoo, Ronsford Beaton, Steven Jacobs and Paul Wintz.

Teams    P    W    L    T    D    Ab    Pts
Windward Is    3    3    0    0    0    0    36
Barbados    3    2    1    0    0    0    24
Jamaica     1    1    0    0    0    0    12
T & T    2    1    1    0    0    0    12
Guyana    3    0    2    0    1    0    6
Leeward Is    2    0    1    0    1    0    3
C CC    2    0    2    0    0    0    0