Je­lani Beck­les

Man­ag­er Manohar Ram­saran says the na­tion­al crick­et team would not spend too much time en­joy­ing the ear­ly suc­cess fol­low­ing their run­away 186-run win over the Wind­ward Is­lands in their open­ing match of the four-day re­gion­al tour­na­ment on Sun­day.

Be­hind a mes­meris­ing spell of spin bowl­ing from 20-year-old left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein, T&T de­feat­ed the Wind­wards in­side three days at the Queen's Park Oval. Ho­sein end­ed with re­mark­able match fig­ures of 11/67.

Ram­saran said the team was sat­is­fied with its per­for­mance, but not elat­ed, as the play­ers know there was still a lot of work to be done. Ram­saran stat­ed: "We had a job to do and we did that, the sea­son has now start­ed, we are sat­is­fied but not elat­ed." He spoke high­ly of Ho­sein's per­for­mance, say­ing that the team was proud of his ef­forts.

The man­ag­er said that fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel al­so put in a cred­itable per­for­mance to back up the spin­ners, es­pe­cial­ly in the sec­ond in­nings. Gabriel's fig­ures were 8-4-19-2, as the bowler gen­er­at­ed good bounce and pace off the wick­et.

The bat­ting dis­play by the top or­der is a bit of a con­cern at the mo­ment for the Red Force. "We are still wor­ried about the top or­der, we ex­pect them to do bet­ter, " Ram­saran said. T&T was re­duced to 17/2 in the first in­nings, fol­lowed by 8/2 in the sec­ond. Ram­saran was how­ev­er pleased that Dar­ren Bra­vo found some form in the sec­ond in­nings, scor­ing a pa­tient 69 to take T&T's lead past the 300-run mark. "He fought it out, showed great char­ac­ter and de­ter­mi­na­tion that I am proud off."

Al­so putting in a valiant ef­fort for the home team was all-rounder Yan­nic Cari­ah. T&T closed day two on 127/7 in its sec­ond in­nings, with an over­all lead of 227. T&T need­ed some­one to hold up the low­er or­der to set the Wind­wards a chal­leng­ing to­tal. Cari­ah was the man, as he added 41 runs to his overnight eight not out to guide T&T to 210 all out. Chas­ing a mas­sive 311 for vic­to­ry, the Wind­wards fold­ed for 124. Cari­ah al­so con­tributed a valu­able 24 in the first in­nings.

Ram­saran thanked the die hard sup­port­ers for com­ing out, but is hop­ing for more sup­port as the sea­son goes along. "I ex­pect­ed more peo­ple to come out and sup­port this young team, but it was good to see the die hard sup­port­ers."

T&T will train to­mor­row and Thurs­day ahead of its third round match against the Lee­ward Is­lands, which bowls off on Fri­day at the Queen's Park Oval. The T&T/Lee­wards match will be a day/night af­fair, start­ing at 3 pm every­day. T&T re­ceived a first round bye.