Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T's se­nior crick­eters will leave these shores this morn­ing for Ja­maica, where they will be look­ing to re­gain pride af­ter some in­dif­fer­ent per­for­mances re­cent­ly.

On Thurs­day, they open their bid for a place in the fi­nals of the Re­gion­al Four-day tour­na­ment but they will have a steep hill to climb in the form of Ja­maica. The de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons played un­beat­en in the pre­lims, win­ning their six match­es on the trot. T&T on the oth­er hand won three and lost three. The Ja­maicans are play­ing at home and when both teams met in the pre­lims at Sabi­na, T&T lost hand­some­ly.

Added to all this T&T are miss­ing most of their front line play­ers, who are ei­ther in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) or in­jured. Ravi Ram­paul, Ke­iron Pol­lard, Sunil Nar­ine, Kevon Coop­er, Samuel Badree and Dwayne Bra­vo are in In­dia, while classy left hand bats­man Dar­ren Bra­vo re­mains un­avail­able as he re­cov­ers from mi­nor surgery.

With all the odds stacked against them this coun­try's play­ers will still be har­bour­ing hopes of an up­set in the semis, that will give them a chance at the ti­tle match. A ti­tle that has elud­ed them since 2006. Re­cent­ly T&T lost in­side two days to Bar­ba­dos at the Queen's Park Oval and was sent pack­ing by the Com­bine Cam­pus­es and Col­leges (CCC) in the se­mi-fi­nals of the Su­per50 tour­na­ment.

The T&T se­lec­tors made changes to the squad go­ing across to Ja­maica, bring­ing in young Je­re­my Solozano (who played his first Pre­mier­ship game for Queen's Park this sea­son on­ly last week) and Stephen Kat­wa­roo who got two half cen­turies in three re­gion­al First Class in­nings this sea­son.

The T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) last week brought in pas­tor Clive Dot­tin to speak to the play­ers and from all re­ports his of­fer­ing on fo­cus, com­mit­ment and na­tion­al pride was well re­ceived by the play­ers.

Coach David Williams said yes­ter­day that the play­ers are leav­ing for Ja­maica in a bet­ter frame of mind. "The lit­tle break we had from the Su­per50 loss to now has done the play­ers a lot of good. They have been able to do some ret­ro­spec­tion and al­so to re-group.

"We had two very good prac­tice ses­sions at the Queen's Park Oval and it is a pity that the rain af­fect­ed the game so bad­ly on the week­end. How­ev­er, all in all the play­ers are in the bet­ter frame of mind as we leave for Ja­maica look­ing to fight well. We have not been hit­ting our goals in the bat­ting de­part­ment and this is what we need to do, in or­der to win the match."

Both teams start with a clean slate and the win­ner will move on to the fi­nals. If the match ends in a draw, then the team that won on first in­nings will go through to the fi­nals.

The play­ers leave at 9.15 am this morn­ing.

Team: Je­re­my Solozano, Lendl Sim­mons, Steven Kat­wa­roo, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Akeal Ho­sein, De­nesh Ramdin–Cap­tain, Im­ran Khan, Rayad Em­rit, Amit Jag­ger­nauth, Yan­nic Car­ri­ah, Shan­non Gabriel, Mar­lon Richards and Kjorn Ot­t­ley.