Vin­ode Mam­chan

Not be­ing able to achieve the goal of win­ning the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) re­gion­al first-class cham­pi­onship, T&T's crick­eters play their fifth match of the se­ries against the Wind­ward Is­lands this morn­ing, at the Queen's Park Oval look­ing to sal­vage what they could, from a cam­paign blight­ed by bad luck. When the toss is tak­en at 10 o'clock this morn­ing, skip­per Daren Gan­ga will be hop­ing it sig­nals a new era in T&T's crick­et. T&T finds it­self lodged in fifth po­si­tion with 21 points af­ter four games, with one out­right win, two draws and one de­feat. Gan­ga said he is hop­ing for max­i­mum points from the re­main­ing two games. "We have two match­es to go and we would like to end on a high note." Gan­ga added that his per­son­al form has been in­dif­fer­ent and he wants to put things right. "My form has been in­dif­fer­ent. I have con­sis­tent­ly scored runs but not the kind of scores that I love. I will be look­ing to get a re­al­ly good score."

Man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de said his squad re­mains mo­ti­vat­ed de­spite be­ing out of con­tention for ti­tle ho­n­ours. "The play­ers have re­mained mo­ti­vat­ed and we want to give it our best shot in the last two games and look for third spot. "Peo­ple must re­mem­ber we have been with­out sev­en top play­ers and we have lost just one game. The oth­er young play­ers have done well and this is good for our crick­et." T&T will be boost­ed by the re­turn of the West In­di­an duo Dar­ren Bra­vo and Adri­an Barath. "We have two young en­ter­pris­ing bats­men Adri­an and Dar­ren com­ing back in­to the team and they are sure to give the team a boost. They have both passed their re­spec­tive fit­ness tests and they are ready for ac­tion." The Wind­wards will chase a good re­sult to move from sixth po­si­tion. They have 16 points from their four match­es. Lead­ing the Wind­wards bat­ting will be out of favour West In­dies open­er De­von Smith and An­dre Fletch­er.

A lot will al­so de­pend on the vet­er­an leg-spin­ner Rawle Lewis. Man­ag­er Lock­hart Se­bastien thanked the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) for al­low­ing the Wind­wards to play at the Queen's Park Oval. "Over the past five years we have not played at the Oval and we must thank the TTCB for al­low­ing this. Young play­ers want to play at the best venues." He added that while his team was out of the ti­tle hunt, the play­ers are look­ing for a good per­for­mance. "We are go­ing to put our best foot for­ward." The Wind­wards have made two changes with Miles Bas­combe and Gary Math­urin com­ing in for Kennedy Lesporis and Don­well Hec­tor. In the oth­er two match­es, Guyana plays the Lee­wards at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, while the mar­quee clash will take place at the Sir Frank Wor­rell ground in St. Au­gus­tine. Lead­ers Ja­maica cur­rent­ly on 48 points from four games can lift the ti­tle with an out­right win. Bar­ba­dos are sec­ond in the stand­ings with 45 points from five match­es.

Teams:

T&T: Daren Gan­ga (capt), Adri­an Barath, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Daron Cruick­shank, Gibran Mo­hammed, Navin Stew­art, Justin Guillen, Sher­win Gan­ga, Amit Jag­ger­nauth, Shan­non Gabriel, Sunil Nar­ine and Im­ran Khan. Man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de, coach Kelvin Williams.

Wind­wards: De­von Smith (capt), Gary Math­urin, An­dre Fletch­er, Liam

Se­bastien, Lyn­don James, Nelon Pas­cal, Miles Bas­combe, Rawle Lewis, Shane Shilling­ford, Deighton But­ler, Ken­roy Pe­ters, Ty­rone Theophille Graig Em­man­u­al. Man­ag­er Lock­hart Se­bastien, coach Ian Allen.

Um­pires: Luther Kel­ly, D So­maru.