Vin­ode Mam­chan

The man­age­ment of the na­tion­al se­nior team has called on the bats­men to give a bet­ter ac­count of them­selves as they go in­to ac­tion against Ja­maica in their fifth match of the Re­gion­al Su­per50 tour­na­ment at Sabi­na Park, to­day.

Af­ter be­ing hum­bled by the hosts in the Re­gion­al Four-day clash on the week­end, the Red Force will look to ex­act re­venge in the short­er form of the game, where they have shown their pro­fi­cien­cy.

While the team prac­tised at Sabi­na Park yes­ter­day, the bats­men were in fo­cus as coach David Williams paid very close at­ten­tion to them. He had the main bats­men in for longer pe­ri­ods at the nets.

Man­ag­er of the team Omar Khan said the bats­men have been spo­ken to and it was get­ting a bit frus­trat­ing that they con­tin­ued to give away their hand when well set.

"We have spo­ken to the bats­men time and time again about con­sis­tent bat­ting yet we still have this prob­lem. The sea­son is well ad­vanced yet these guys are still mak­ing the same mis­takes over and over again. The bowlers have been fan­tas­tic yet our record has not been be­cause of the fact that the bats­men for the most part have not come up to scratch.

"They have tak­en own­er­ship of the fact that they have failed the team but this is not enough, we need them to go out there and re­al­ly put their heads down and get the runs on the board."

The team has been bol­stered by the re­turn of the in form Pow­er­Gen all rounder Sher­win Gan­ga. The left-han­der, who is yet to play for T&T this sea­son, has been among the runs in the do­mes­tic league. He re­places Amit Jag­ger­nauth on the team, while all-rounder Teshawn Cas­tro comes in for Kavesh Kan­tas­ingh.

"We are in the semi­fi­nals of both tour­na­ments and if the guys can pick them­selves up we can have a tremen­dous end to the sea­son."

T&T has al­ready won the Re­gion­al T20 tour­na­ment and would love to add the Su­per50 and the First Class to that crown.

Ja­maica is at the top of the stand­ings with 19 points from four wins, while T&T is sec­ond with 17 points from four wins. If T&T wins to­day, they will take over the lead at the top of the stand­ings and with just one match to play against Bar­ba­dos at home on Sun­day, they will more than like­ly play the fourth place team in the semi­fi­nals.

Bar­ba­dos are cur­rent­ly third in the stand­ings and the Red Force will try to avoid a sec­ond place fin­ish so that they would not have to face the Ba­jans in the semi­fi­nals, which will be played at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos.

Mean­while, the na­tion­al play­ers will ob­serve a minute's si­lence be­fore the game to­day as a mark of re­spect for the re­cent pass­ing of for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tive man­ag­er of the TTCB Ramb­hai Pa­tel, who died on Mon­day.

The match gets go­ing at 10.30 am T&T time.

Al­so to­day, Bar­ba­dos meets Lee­ward Is­lands while Guyana plays Com­bined Cam­pus­es & Col­leges (CCC).

Squad

T&T: Adri­an Barath, Lendl Sim­mons, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Ja­son Mo­hammed, De­nesh Ramdin, Sher­win Gan­ga, Rayad Em­rit, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Khe­san Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, Mar­lon Richards, Shan­non Gabriel, Im­ran Khan, Teshawn Cas­tro. Man­ag­er�Omar Khan, Coach�David Williams.

Ja­maica: Carl­ton Baugh, David Bernard, Jer­maine Black­wood, Nkrumah Bon­ner, Odean Brown, Shel­don Cot­ter­rell, Yan­nick El­liott, Zeniffe Fowler, Si­mon Jack­son, Tamar Lam­bert, An­dre Mc­Carthy, Niki­ta Miller and An­drew Richard­son.

STAND­INGS

Teams-Mat-Won-Lost-

Tied-N/R-Pts-Net RR

Ja­maica-4-4-0-0-0-19-+1.160

T&T-4-4-0-0-0-17-+0.916

Bar­ba­dos-4-2-2-0-0-10-+0.290

CCC-5-2-3-0-0-10--0.018

Wind­ward Is-5-2-3-0-0-8--0.643

Guyana-4-1-3-0-0-4-0.585

Lee­ward Is-4-0-4-0-0-0--0.868?