Trinidad & To­ba­go's slow bowlers helped put their side in a favourable po­si­tion af­ter Dar­ren Bra­vo nar­row­ly missed a maid­en first-class hun­dred in the WICB re­gion­al four-day match com­pe­ti­tion yes­ter­day. Sher­win Gan­ga col­lect­ed two wick­ets, while Dave Mo­hammed and Amit Jag­ger­nauth each made a sin­gle strike, as Bar­ba­dos, re­ply­ing to Trinidad & To­ba­go's first in­nings to­tal of 264, reached 108 for four at the close on the sec­ond day of their first round match at the Po­lice Sports Club. Open­er Dale Richards was un­beat­en on 60 and new­com­er Ro­han Nurse was not out on one at the close.

Bra­vo, the broth­er of West In­dies all-rounder Dwayne Bra­vo, bat­ted near­ly 5-1/2 hours be­fore he was the last T&T bats­man dis­missed about 20 min­utes af­ter lunch for a ca­reer-best 97 that held the sec­ond half of the vis­i­tors' bat­ting to­geth­er. T&T's new-ball pair of Rayad Em­rit and Richard Kel­ly failed to make the break­through when Bar­ba­dos start­ed their in­nings, but things got quite in­ter­est­ing when Gan­ga, bowl­ing his un­com­pli­cat­ed off-spin, was in­tro­duced from the south­ern end af­ter sev­en overs. Gan­ga struck in his first over, when he had left-hand­ed open­er Ja­son Haynes, the Bar­ba­dos cap­tain, caught at slip for six. T&T were held up, when Ryan Hinds joined Richards and they spent near­ly 45 min­utes de­fy­ing the T&T slow bowlers to add a mere 15 runs from 13.1 overs. But Gan­ga struck again, when he had Hinds caught at mid-on for 10, as Bar­ba­dos reached 46 for two at tea.

Af­ter the break, the T&T slow bowlers con­tin­ued to ap­ply the pres­sure, and the Bar­ba­di­an bats­men cracked un­der it, when Jonathan Carter was caught be­hind for 16 off Mo­hammed and Dwayne Smith was caught at deep mid-wick­et for 10 to leave the hosts on 93 for four. T&T tried to make fur­ther in­roads in­to the Bar­ba­dos bat­ting, but Nurse joined Richards and spent the last 45 min­utes de­fy­ing the vis­i­tors' at­tack. Richards reached his half-cen­tu­ry, when he turned a de­liv­ery from Dave Mo­hammed in­to mid-wick­et for a sin­gle, and has so far spent near­ly 3-1/2 hours at the crease. Gan­ga has been T&T's most suc­cess­ful bowler so far with two wick­ets for 18 runs from 11 overs. Ear­li­er, T&T re­sumed on their overnight to­tal of 182 for five and Bra­vo's breath-tak­ing bat­ting held the spot­light.

Bra­vo seemed des­tined to reach his hun­dred, but he was caught at square-leg flick­ing at a de­liv­ery from Ke­mar Roach, as he anx­ious­ly tried to get the pre­cious three runs for the land­mark. T&T had lost Gibran Mo­hammed ear­ly, when he was caught be­hind off Tino Best for nine to give wick­et­keep­er Patrick Browne his fourth dis­missal for the in­nings. Em­rit fell for eight, Kel­ly for two and Dave Mo­hammed for 12–all to Ryan Hinds–the pick of the Bar­ba­dos bowlers with four for 50 from 33 overs be­fore Roach brought things to a close with the scalp of Bra­vo to end with three for 59 from 21.2 overs. T&T, the reign­ing re­gion­al lim­it­ed-overs and Twen­ty20 cham­pi­ons, are look­ing to com­plete the sweep of se­nior re­gion­al ti­tles by win­ning the West In­dies first-class cham­pi­onship. The vis­i­tors are al­so look­ing to con­tin­ue their re­cent dom­i­nance over Bar­ba­dos in re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions.

T&T have pre­vailed over their hosts 11 times out of 15 when they have met in ei­ther first-class, lim­it­ed-overs, or Twen­ty20 for­mats, as Bar­ba­dos, the most suc­cess­ful side in the mod­ern West In­dies first-class cham­pi­onship, have lost some of their air of in­vin­ci­bil­i­ty in re­cent times. In the first-class are­na, T&T have stumped their long-stand­ing sport­ing ri­vals four times in their last five match­es, in­clud­ing a 264-run vic­to­ry three years ago in Bar­ba­dos at the Carl­ton Sports Club. But for all of T&T's dom­i­nance, they have still lost four of their last six match­es in Bar­ba­dos, in­clud­ing a three-wick­et de­feat two years ago at the North Stars So­cial & Cul­tur­al Club.