After making a quicker than expected recovery from an injury sustained last year, Rayad Emrit, is eagerly looking forward to kick-starting his 2014 regional cricket season.The Trinidad & Tobago allrounder went down with a badly damaged shoulder last September during the Champions League in India but is now back on his feet and is looking to play a leading role for the T&T Red Force during the upcoming NAGICO Super50 on home soil."I know what I'm capable of. I was captain for some of the [Super50] games last year and I know what the team is expecting of me, and now it's a new captain and I know what he wants from me," he told WICB Media."I'm looking forward to taking wickets, bowling as economically as I could, and get some runs when I could."
Emrit, now age 32, has played at the regional level for over a decade and has emerged as a capable match-winner with both bat and ball. He is good enough to have scored two first-class centuries and captured four five-wicket hauls.The NAGICO Super50 tournament will be played at Queen's Oval in Trinidad and Shaw Park in Tobago from January 30 to February 15. The home side have been drawn in Zone B alongside Barbados, Combined Campuses & Colleges and Leeward Islands.T&T will be without the big-hitting Kieron Pollard, who is recovering from an injury he sustained late last year, and Emrit is expected to be the man called upon to fill his boots.
The squad also includes other allrounders: skipper Dwayne Bravo, Kevon Cooper, Imran Khan and Yannic Ottley."I shouldn't say that my job is easier now but I sort of play better under pressure–the pressure to perform for my country. Pollard isn't here so I think that I have to step up and fill his gap," Emrit said."I don't see it as much pressure as before, but I want to cement my spot in the team, because it's a very good team, we have a star studded team, so it's something I want to be a part off."The inaugural NAGICO Super50 tournament will be broadcast live on ESPN and on Caribbean Super Station radio. Matches at Queen's Park Oval will be day/night fixtures while matches at Shaw Park, Tobago will be day games.The champions will take home the Clive Lloyd Trophy–named in honour of the legendary captain of the 1975 and 1979 World Cup winning teams.