Vin­ode Mam­chan

A good Fri­day af­ter­noon crowd is ex­pect­ed to­day, when the T&T Red Force takes on the Com­bined Col­leges and Cam­pus­es (CCC) in the sec­ond se­mi-fi­nals of the 2015 Nagi­co Su­per50 Chal­lenge at the Queen's Park Oval.

Red Force, the beat­en fi­nal­ist in the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment in 2014, would be look­ing to book an­oth­er place in the cham­pi­onship match. How­ev­er, they have the plucky CCC to con­tend with, and skip­per Rayad Em­rit is not un­der­es­ti­mat­ing them. "We have had run ins with the CCC be­fore, so we know just how dif­fi­cult it is to get over them. We are def­i­nite­ly not go­ing to un­der­es­ti­mate this CCC team, they have shown that they have the skill to de­feat top teams and we have to be at the top of our game, to make sure we don't pass in the rush. This is a se­mi-fi­nal and any se­mi-fi­nal is dif­fi­cult. We need to two wins to lift the tro­phy and we know what we have to do to get that suc­cess."

Red Force will be boost­ed by the re­turn of Ke­iron Pol­lard and Ravi Ram­paul, both of whom missed the last game. "Ke­iron and Ravi will be back for us and this is a big boost to the team. When you play in match­es like these you need your ex­pe­ri­enced men and hav­ing them back in the team is go­ing to make a big dif­fer­ence."

T&T got a scare against the Lee­wards in their fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary match, as they were bowled out for 206 and at one point the Lee­wards were 65 for two be­fore self de­struc­t­ing and los­ing the match.

"We have learnt from our mis­takes in the tour­na­ment to date and we are tak­ing things for­ward in­to this se­mi-fi­nals. The boys have been re­al­ly fo­cussed, they want to do well for T&T and this is great to see."

Mean­while, the Red Force and the CCC held their fi­nal work­out yes­ter­day at the Queen's Park Oval and they would be look­ing to ex­e­cute well to­day. With rain about the place, the CCC will be pray­ing that they do get in a match be­cause there are no re­serve days card­ed for the semis and fi­nals. If rain pre­vents a re­sult to­day, Red Force moves on by virtue of their bet­ter record in the pre­lims. Red Force de­feat­ed West In­dies Un­der-19, Ja­maica and Lee­wards to fin­ish top of their group, while the CCC had a washout against Bar­ba­dos, a win against Guyana and a loss against the Wind­wards.

Match time to­day is 1.30pm and gates at the Oval will be opened from 11am.

Teams

T&T Red Force:

Rayad Em­rit (Cap­tain), Dar­ren Bra­vo, Dwayne Bra­vo, Kevon Coop­er, Akeal Ho­sein, Stephen Kat­wa­roo, Im­ran Khan, Evin Lewis, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Sunil Nar­ine, Kieron Pol­lard, Ravi Ram­paul, Je­re­my Solozano and Nicholas Sookdeosingh.

CCC:

Chad­wick Wal­ton (Cap­tain), Ryan Austin, Cas­sius Bur­ton, Keron Cot­toy, Kavem Hodge, Kyle Hope, Kyle May­ers, James Mc­Don­ald, Paul Palmer, Christo­pher Pow­ell, Rov­man Pow­ell, Kristo­pher Ram­saran, Sha­caya Thomas and Kesrick Williams.