Vin­ode Mam­chan

Fast bowler Daniel St. Clair is ex­pect­ed to de­but for the T&T Red Force to­day, when they play Ja­maica in their third round WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League (PCL) tour­na­ment at the Queen's Park Oval.

With Shan­non Gabriel leav­ing with the West In­dies team for South Africa, St. Clair who has been im­pres­sive in na­tion­al tri­als, has earned a call up.

Skip­per Rayad Em­rit said yes­ter­day that it was like­ly that St Clair would play. "Shan­non is out and we de­cid­ed to give this tal­ent­ed young­ster a shot at play­ing. We will make a fi­nal de­ci­sion af­ter we as­sess the pitch."

Al­so out on West In­dies du­ty is Test cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin who has been re­placed by the sol­id Steven Kat­wa­roo.

The Red Force re­ceived a fur­ther blow when it was re­vealed that leg spin­ner Im­ran Khan, who starred in the six-wick­et win against the Lee­ward Is­lands was strug­gling with a side strain. Khan grabbed ten wick­ets in the game and will know his fate be­fore play starts this morn­ing. Ker­wyn Sir­ju, a leg-spin­ner who plays for Es­mer­al­da, has been in­clud­ed in the squad as cov­er.

The oth­er change to the team that won against the Lee­wards is Je­re­my Solozano, who comes in for an­oth­er in-form play­er, Yan­nic Cari­ah. The pro­lif­ic Un­der-19 play­er will be hop­ing to break in­to the fi­nal 11 against a team he made his de­but against last year. Cari­ah's toe was frac­tured in the clash against the Lee­wards.

There was a som­bre mood in the T&T camp yes­ter­day over the death of Aus­tralian bats­man Phil Hugh­es. Hugh­es was struck on the neck by a short ball from Sean Ab­bott in a Sheffield Shield game three days ago, and died yes­ter­day morn­ing in hos­pi­tal in Syd­ney.

Em­rit said: "When I spoke to the guys this morn­ing, they were all sad. We felt as if it was one of us be­cause we are all crick­eters. It is hard to ac­cept a man go­ing down like this and our prayers are with all Aus­tralia at this point."

When play gets off to­day, Red Force will be look­ing to close the gap on lead­ers Guyana Jaguars, who have 34 points. Red Force is cur­rent­ly sec­ond with 20 points, just a soli­tary point ahead of Ja­maica.

Teams

T&T Red Force: Rayad Em­rit (cap­tain), Akeal Ho­sein, Evin Lewis, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, Mar­lon Richards, Nicholas Pooran, Lendl Sim­mons, Daniel St Clair, Je­re­my Solozano, Ker­wyn Sir­ju and Steven Kat­wa­roo.

Ja­maica: Tamar Lam­bert (cap­tain), Carl­ton Baugh Jr, Dave Bernard Jr, Nkrumah Bon­ner, John Camp­bell, Ja­son Dawes, Damion Ja­cobs, An­dr� Mc­Carthy, Niki­ta Miller, Mar­quino Mind­ley, Sha­caya Thomas and Keno Wal­lace.