Vin­ode Mam­chan

Mer­ry Boys fast bowler Mar­lon Richards will make his de­but to­day for T&T against the Com­bine Cam­pus­es and Col­leges (CCC) in their fourth round Re­gion­al four-day clash at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

Richards was a late in­clu­sion yes­ter­day at the ex­pense of left arm spin­ner Kavesh Kan­tas­ingh. Chair­man of the na­tion­al se­lec­tion pan­el Dud­nath Ramkessoon ex­plained the rea­son be­hind the last minute change.

"Skip­per Dwayne Bra­vo has a nig­gling back in­jury and will not be able to bowl on the first two days of the match against the CCC," said Ramkissoon. "Over the last two days he will have lim­it­ed bowl­ing so as a re­sult of this we have de­cid­ed to call up Mar­lon Richards for his de­but."

The Mer­ry Boys fast bowler has been bowl­ing well this sea­son and we de­cid­ed to give him a chance at the high­er lev­el.

The T&T team will al­so be with­out ace spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine who has been rest­ed for this match. How­ev­er, man­ag­er of the team Omar Khan thinks that his team has the fire­pow­er to dis­miss the CCC twice in this game for an out­right vic­to­ry. "We are miss­ing Sunil Nar­ine but we have Ravi Ram­paul who is back as well as the ex­pe­ri­ence guys like Amit Jag­ger­nauth. We have the qual­i­ty in there to win this match out­right and the guys are very con­fi­dent af­ter their con­vinc­ing win against the CCC in their Su­per50 match on Thurs­day night."

T&T bowled out the CCC for just 97 runs be­fore go­ing on to win the match at 98 for two wick­ets. The play­ers earned a well de­served rest yes­ter­day for their ef­forts.

T&T is cur­rent­ly tied for sec­ond po­si­tion on the ta­ble on 24 points but more im­por­tant­ly they have won their last two match­es on the trot. They opened the cam­paigned with a loss against Wind­ward Is­lands who lead the stand­ings with 36 points from four match­es. In sec­ond po­si­tion is T&T (24), Bar­ba­dos (24) and Ja­maica (24).

To­day's match gets un­der­way at 10 am.

T&T team:

Dwayne Bra­vo (capt), Adri­an Barath, Lendl Sim­mons, Im­ran Khan, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Kieron Pol­lard, Steven Kat­wa­roo, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Rayad Em­rit, Ravi Ram­paul, Amit Jag­ger­nauth, Khe­san Yan­nick Ot­t­ley and Mar­lon Richards. Man­ag­er - Omar Khan and Coach - David Williams.

CCC team:

Kyle Corbin (capt), An­tho­ny Al­leyne, Ryan Austin, Derone Davis, Ja­son Dawes, Akeem De­war, Kevin Mc­Clean, Nekoli Par­ris, Floyd Reifer, Ray­mon Reifer, Sha­caya Thomas, Chad­wick Wal­ton and Kesrick Williams.

Points Ta­ble

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Teams M W L Ti D A Pts

Wind­ward Is 4 3 1 0 0 0 36

Bar­ba­dos 3 2 1 0 0 0 24

Ja­maica 2 2 0 0 0 0 24

T&T 3 2 1 0 0 0 24

CCC 3 1 2 0 0 0 12

Lee­ward Is 3 0 2 0 1 0 7

Guyana 4 0 3 0 1 0 6