Vin­ode Mam­chan

The so-called Big Five have been in­clud­ed on the NGC Red Force team for the up­com­ing Nagi­co Re­gion­al Su­per50 crick­et se­ries that starts on Jan­u­ary 15.

The Red Force, led by Rayad Em­rit, in­cludes the West In­dies quin­tet Dar­ren Bra­vo, Dwayne Bra­vo, Sunil Nar­ine, Ke­iron Pol­lard and Ravi Ram­paul. The five play­ers were over­looked by the West In­dies se­lec­tors for the lim­it­ed overs se­ries against South Africa and hence are avail­able to play for this coun­try.

This was stat­ed by con­venor of the na­tion­al se­lec­tion pan­el, Alec Burns, at yes­ter­day's press con­fer­ence to an­nounce the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny's (NGC) con­tin­ued spon­sor­ship of the team. Dwayne Bra­vo and Pol­lard would not be avail­able for the open­ing game on Jan­u­ary 16 against the West In­dies Un­der-19 at Shaw Park in To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, they will be play­ing for the West In­dies T20 team against South Africa un­til Jan­u­ary 14, and would ar­rive home in time for the clash.

The oth­er men on the team in­clude ex­plo­sive open­er Evin Lewis, who would have his long time Pow­er­Gen friend Nicholas Sookdeosingh as his part­ner at the top of the or­der. Sookdeosingh said he was very hap­py to make the grade af­ter post­ing ex­cel­lent scores in do­mes­tic crick­et over the past few years. He al­so scored a cen­tu­ry and a half cen­tu­ry in the four prac­tice match­es that were played pri­or to the team be­ing se­lect­ed.

Al­so at the top of the or­der in the youth­ful Je­re­my Solozano. They will be backed up in the mid­dle or­der by the Bra­vo broth­ers, the hur­ri­cane bat Pol­lard and the ex­pe­ri­enced Ja­son Mo­hammed, who would dou­ble as vice-cap­tain.

Wick­et­keep­er is Nicholas Pooran, while all­rounder slots will be tak­en by leg-spin­ner Im­ran Khan, Kevon Coop­er and Akeal Ho­sein. The pace at­tack will form around skip­per Em­rit and Ravi Ram­paul, while the mys­tery man Nar­ine is the main spin­ner. The se­lec­tors al­so named Derone Davis as the re­serve play­er and Burns added that all the play­ers un­der con­tract by the Red Force would re­main el­i­gi­ble for a call-up.

Mean­while, NGC will con­tin­ue as team spon­sor af­ter they pledged $4.45M per year un­til 2016. This fol­lows spon­sor­ship in the re­gion of $10M which was col­lect­ed by the TTCB for the pe­ri­od 2011 to 2013.

Speak­ing at the event, NGC chair­man Roop Chan Chadeesingh said: "Well, I think that 2015 is go­ing to be a love­ly year for crick­et and it's won­der­ful to be present at the very start of it, we wit­ness the rev­e­la­tion of the T&T team for the Nagi­co Su­per50 event.

"It is ex­cit­ing for me, not on­ly as a lover of sport but al­so as chair­man of a com­pa­ny that has made such sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go over the years, to see the fruits that these con­tri­bu­tions have pro­duced.

"NGC is a world class com­pa­ny and so is the Red Force, which I think is one of the finest T20 teams in the world and we are very hap­py to be as­so­ci­at­ed with them."

?NGC RED FORCE TEAM

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