Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T Red Force will bat­tle the Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes in their round eight WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League (PCL) clash at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) to­day and are ex­pect­ed to face the im­pres­sive West In­dies U-19 pac­er Alzari Joseph.

The Red Force fresh from an away win against the Ja­maican Scor­pi­ons will be wary of the young pac­er who was clocked at 147kmph dur­ing the re­cent ICC Youth World Cup in Bangladesh. Al­so on the team is bats­man Kea­cy Car­ty who grabbed the man of the match award in the fi­nals of the tour­na­ment, when he scored an un­beat­en half cen­tu­ry to give his team the ti­tle. Fast bowler Joseph was a stand­out in the tour­na­ment, bowl­ing with con­sis­tent pace and move­ment to fin­ish with 13 wick­ets.

He took three wick­ets in the fi­nal as part of an open­ing burst which crip­pled In­dia ear­ly and set up the Windies even­tu­al five-wick­et win. Joseph who al­so played in four first-class games in the cur­rent sea­son pri­or to the Youth World Cup, has so far tak­en 17 wick­ets in­clud­ing a ca­reer-best eight for 62 in a low-scor­ing con­test against Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes at Wind­sor Park last No­vem­ber.

Car­ty, mean­while, is now poised to make his first class de­but. Joseph and Car­ty have been in­clud­ed at the ex­pense of bats­man Sher­win Pe­ters and seam­er Quin­ton Boatswain. Hur­ri­canes start­ed the cam­paign with five straight de­feats but are now un­beat­en in the last two rounds af­ter beat­ing Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons in the sixth round and draw­ing with Vol­ca­noes in the last round.

They lie bot­tom of the stand­ings on 36 points, five points of adrift of Vol­ca­noes in fifth place. Ti­tle-hold­ers Guyana Jaguars top the stand­ings with 107 points. T&T Red Force is cur­rent­ly in fourth po­si­tion with just 56 points–a whop­ping 41 points shy of the lead­ers Guyana Jaguars.

Man­ag­er of the T&T team Roland Sam­path speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia lim­it­ed yes­ter­day re­vealed that the T&T team will re­main the same from the last week's en­counter against Ja­maica. The Red Force on the back of two ex­cel­lent knocks from Evin Lewis and an eight wick­et haul from Jon Russ Jagges­sar de­feat­ed the Scor­pi­ons at Sabi­na Park, de­spite los­ing on first in­nings. Look­ing ahead Sam­path said: "The guys have been play­ing good crick­et in re­cent times and they would want to go out there and con­tin­ue the good work.

As the sea­son pro­gressed guys start­ed com­ing in­to their own and we are see­ing the re­sults. Evin and Jon played ex­cel­lent­ly in the last game and we are look­ing for more from then and for oth­ers to step up as well. We have a good unit play­ing to­geth­er and we ex­pect an­oth­er good match this week­end."

Play gets un­der­way at 10am.

SQUADS

T&T Red Force:

Ja­son Mo­hammed (cap­tain), Yan­nic Cari­ah, Nars­ingh De­onar­ine, Rayad Em­rit, Kyle Hope, Akeal Ho­sein, Jon-Russ Jages­sar, Steven Kat­wa­roo, Im­ran Khan, Evin Lewis, Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, Mar­lon Richards, Je­re­my Solozano.

Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes:

Nkrumah Bon­ner (Cap­tain), Or­lan­do Pe­ters (Vice Cap­tain), Nel­son Boland, Kea­cy Car­ty, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Daron Cruick­shank, Col­in Hamer, Jah­mar Hamil­ton, Montcin Hodge, Alzarri Joseph, Je­re­mi­ah Louis, Jacques Tay­lor, Gavin Tonge.

STAND­INGS

FRAN­CHIS­ES PTS M W L T I

Guyana Jaguars 107 7 6 0 0 1

Bar­ba­dos Pride 90 7 4 1 0 2

Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons 60 7 3 4 0 0

T&T Red Force 56 7 2 3 0 2

Wind­wards Vol­ca­noes 41 7 1 4 0 2

Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes 36 7 1 5 0 1