Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T crick­eters will go in­to ac­tion to­day against Guyana, know­ing ful­ly well that a good game would lead to their first Re­gion­al First Class ti­tle in eight years.

The last time T&T lift­ed the First Class ti­tle, cur­rent spin­ner Ricky Jaipaul was just 14 years old. Now they will look to him to as­sist in bring­ing home the crown.

Daren Gan­ga took this coun­try to their last First Class ti­tle way back in 2006 and since then the Red Force has been suc­cess­ful in in­stant crick­et–but not the for­mat that mat­ters.

How­ev­er, all of that can change with­in the next few days, as the T&T boys are four days of good crick­et away from be­ing crowned First Class cham­pi­ons.

If they get past Guyana, they will claim the WICB Pres­i­dent's Tro­phy and will then en­ter in­to the semi­fi­nals to bat­tle for the oth­er ti­tle–the George Headley/Ever­ton Weekes Tro­phy.

The T&T play­ers want this ti­tle bad­ly and what has made man­ag­er Manohar Ram­saran very hap­py is the fact that they have been the ones speak­ing about the his­to­ry of the team and that they need this ti­tle bad­ly.

Ram­saran said: "What was re­al­ly good was the fact that I did not have to tell the boys that they need to cor­rect this sta­tis­tic of not win­ning the ti­tle for so many years. They have been the ones talk­ing about it and they have been the ones say­ing that they want it bad­ly and that they are go­ing to fight for that ti­tle all the way.

"They have a fan­tas­tic chance of do­ing this and once they keep the fo­cus they have shown through­out the sea­son, over the next four days, the ti­tle will be go­ing home with them."

T&T cur­rent­ly leads the stand­ings with 72 points from five match­es and they are sev­en ahead of their clos­est ri­vals Bar­ba­dos. The Ba­jans, who pipped T&T for the Nagi­co Su­per50 ti­tle will be com­ing up against sec­ond from bot­tom Lee­ward Is­lands, so T&T can­not de­pend on them to have a good game.

The ti­tle is in their hands and they need to go out and de­feat the cel­lar placed Guyanese to lift the crown.

The Red Force has got­ten the bet­ter of the Guyanese in eight of their last nine First Class match­es, in­clud­ing three wins.

T&T has boost­ed their chances with re­turn­ing West In­dies World T20 bats­man Lendl Sim­mons, while the Guyanese have been shak­en with ill­ness or in­jury sidelin­ing key spin­ner Veerasam­my Per­maul and ex­pe­ri­enced bats­man As­sad Fu­dadin, with leg-spin­ner De­ven­dra Bishoo and all-rounder Christo­pher Barn­well to re­place them.

In­ter­est will re­main high as the top three teams en­ter­ing the fi­nal round of match­es–T&T, Wind­ward Is­lands and Bar­ba­dos–have all se­cured a place in the last four...but the last slot in the semi­fi­nals has come down to a straight shoot-out, when Com­bined Cam­pus­es & Col­leges host Ja­maica at the Three Ws Oval on the Cave Hill cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in Bar­ba­dos.

STAND­INGS

Team P W L D Pts

T&T 5 4 1 0 72

Wind­wards 6 3 2 1 65

Bar­ba­dos 5 3 1 1 65

CCC 5 2 2 1 46

Ja­maica 5 2 3 0 44

Lee­wards 5 2 3 0 40

Guyana 5 0 4 1 21

fix­tures?

T&T vs Guyana:

Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um, Guyana

Lee­ward Is­lands vs Bar­ba­dos:

Sir Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground

CCC vs Ja­maica: Three Ws Oval

All match­es start at 10 am

Squads

T&T: Adri­an Barath, Evin Lewis, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Jonathan Au­gus­tus, Im­ran Khan, Steven Kat­wa­roo (Wick­et­keep­er), Rayad Em­rit (Cap­tain), Shan­non Gabriel, Amit Jag­ger­nauth, Ricky Jaipaul, Mar­lon Richards, Lendl Sim­mons, Kelvin Williams (Coach), Manohar Ram­saran (Man­ag­er), Clin­ton Je­re­mi­ah (Train­er), Zephri­nus Nicholas (Masseur)

GUYANA: Leon John­son (Cap­tain), As­sad Fu­dadin, Amir Khan, Trevon Grif­fith, Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, Za­heer Mo­hamed, Rons­ford Beat­on, An­tho­ny Bram­ble, De­ven­dra Bishoo, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Ru­an John­son, Keon Joseph, Vishaul Singh