Vin­ode Mam­chan

Af­ter miss­ing out on play­ing in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL), Kevon Coop­er wants to prove him­self and come back with a bang in the up­com­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).Coop­er will be lin­ing up for the T&T Red Steel for the third straight year, when the tour­na­ment bowls off on June 20. T&T Red Steel will go in­to ac­tion on June 21, when they op­pose St Lu­cia Zouks at the Beause­jour.

Coop­er, who first played in the IPL in 2012, de­scribed his ab­sence this year as un­for­tu­nate but point­ed out that he used the time to work hard on his game. He is now look­ing to have a good CPL tour­na­ment and earn him­self a place on the West In­dies T20 team."I have worked on my bat­ting and I am hav­ing a good sea­son with my lo­cal club team, Queen's Park. Hard work brings suc­cess and I have been putting in a lot of that, so I am look­ing for­ward to go­ing out there and giv­ing some sol­id per­for­mances in the CPL."

Coop­er said the Red Steel team is filled with all-rounders which could prove cru­cial. "T20 crick­et is now all about all rounders, the game has changed and grown tremen­dous­ly and you need good all rounders. Some­times you need a man to bowl just one over and then you might want him to bat at three, so when you have all rounders, they come in handy."

Coop­er not­ed that for­mer South African leg­end Jacques Kallis will be a ma­jor at­trac­tion for the Red Steel. "We will be com­ing up against some good teams, but we have Jo­han Botha and one of the best all­rounders to have ever played the game in Jacques Kallis. Kallis is a leg­end and just hav­ing him will be a great boost.

"We are all look­ing for­ward to be­ing in his com­pa­ny and learn­ing from him. Botha is al­so a very good all rounder and will add to our ef­fort."

The semi­fi­nals and fi­nals are card­ed for Trinidad and the Red Steel would not want to miss out on play­ing at that stage of the tour­na­ment be­fore their home crowd. "We need to play good crick­et to have a chance of play­ing the semis and fi­nals at home. Last year we won all our games here so we are look­ing for­ward to play­ing at this venue."