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Sunday, July 6, 2025

POLLARD'S RED FORCE TAKES CENTRE STAGE

by

Sports Desk
1607 days ago
20210211
Red Force captain Kieron Pollard, centre, hi-five pacer Ravi Rampaul during one of the team’s practice matches at the National Cricket Centre in Balmain, Couva in January. At left is batsman Darren Bravo.

Red Force captain Kieron Pollard, centre, hi-five pacer Ravi Rampaul during one of the team’s practice matches at the National Cricket Centre in Balmain, Couva in January. At left is batsman Darren Bravo.

ATHONY HARRIS

The T&T Red Force team led by all-rounder Kieron Pol­lard will open its cam­paign on Thurs­day against Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons in the CG In­sur­ance Su­per50 Cup match in St John's, An­tigua at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, this morn­ing from 9:30 am.

The T&T team com­pris­ing Dar­ren Bra­vo (Vice-Cap­tain), ex­pe­ri­ence spin bowlers Im­ran Khan and Khary Pierre, pac­ers An­der­son Phillip and Jay­den Seales and wick­et­keep­er De­nesh Ramdin ar­rived in An­tigua since the start of Feb­ru­ary with head coach David Fur­longe and man­ag­er Se­bas­t­ian Ed­wards.

How­ev­er, over the week­end T&T which won the ti­tle for a record 12 times, but has come up emp­ty-hand­ed since 2016, saw the ar­rivals of its over­seas-based West In­dies and T10 play­ers like Evin Lewis, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Sunil Nar­ine, Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Ram­paul, Lendl Sim­mons and skip­per Pol­lard join the team.

Pol­lard, 33, told Crick­et West In­dies me­dia that Red Force has the po­ten­tial to go all the way.

"I be­lieve we have a very good team in terms of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence and we can go that step fur­ther and make it to the fi­nals. In the last few years, we missed out, reach­ing the se­mi-fi­nals and be­ing beat­en, once by CCC and once by Lee­wards. Hope­ful­ly, we have all the en­er­gy and all the gas in the tank and go all the way," Pol­lard said.

He added, "This promis­es to be a re­al­ly good tour­na­ment and I know play­ers will be aim­ing to im­press and im­prove their ca­reers."

The Red Force made it to the se­mi-fi­nals of the 2019 tour­na­ment, los­ing out to the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes.

The team will be guid­ed by new head coach Fur­longe, whom Pol­lard has ex­pressed con­fi­dence in. Pol­lard said Fur­longe has es­tab­lished him­self over the years at cham­pi­on club Queen’s Park.

Ed­wards is the team's new man­ag­er and as the pres­i­dent of the Mer­ry Boys Crick­et Club, he al­so brings ex­cel­lent cre­den­tials to his new port­fo­lio.

West In­dies ODI cap­tain, Pol­lard, who is re­turn­ing to the tour­na­ment af­ter a one-year ab­sence said, "It is very good that crick­et is com­ing back to the Caribbean ... play­ers will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their skills and en­ter­tain our fans. It has been a try­ing 2020 for crick­eters and the whole Caribbean, so it is re­al­ly good that we have the CG In­sur­ance Su­per50 Cup be­ing played at this time and hope­ful­ly, it can un­earth some new tal­ent.”

Mean­while, for­mer West In­dies vet­er­an all-rounder Dwayne Bra­vo, who is with the team as its men­tor, has come out and praised Pooran, who just helped North­ern War­riors to their sec­ond Abu Dhabi T10 ti­tle on Sat­ur­day at the Sheikh Za­yed Sta­di­um in Abu Dhabi, and who the Red Force will be look­ing to for sol­id per­for­mances from said: "I'm very proud of him (Pooran), proud of his lead­er­ship, proud of the way he cares about him­self, the way he dom­i­nat­ed the tour­na­ment with the bat and then to walk away as the cham­pi­on cap­tain. I'm very hap­py for him."

The first West In­dies re­gion­al tour­na­ment of 2021 bowled off on Sun­day. The lin­ger­ing im­pact of Covid-19 means a scaled-down ver­sion of the event from ten to six teams.

The tour­na­ment will come to a cli­max when a new cham­pi­on is ex­pect­ed to be crowned on Feb­ru­ary 27, af­ter the 2019-20 cham­pi­ons, West In­dies Emerg­ing Play­ers, will not de­fend­ing their tro­phy due to COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­straints.

Each team will play each oth­er on a round-robin ba­sis with the top four teams qual­i­fy­ing for the se­mi-fi­nals and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to reach the grand fi­nal. Match­es will be played at An­tigua’s two crick­et venues - the Coolidge Crick­et Ground (CCG) and the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um (SVRS). There will be 13 match­es at CCG in­clud­ing the se­mi-fi­nals and fi­nal, and six match­es at SVRS.

RED FORCE TEAM

Kieron Pol­lard (Cap­tain), Dar­ren Bra­vo (Vice-Cap­tain), Akeal Ho­sein, Im­ran Khan, Evin Lewis, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Sunil Nar­ine, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Khary Pierre, Nicholas Pooran, An­der­son Phillip, Di­nesh Ramdin, Ravi Ram­paul, Jay­den Seales, Lendl Sim­mons; David Fur­longe (Head Coach)

JA­MAICA SCOR­PI­ONS TEAM

Rov­man Pow­ell (Cap­tain), Der­val Green (Vice-Cap­tain), Fabi­an Allen, Den­nis Bul­li, Shel­don Cot­trell, Jav­el Glenn, Bran­don King, An­dre Mc­Carthy, Jamie Mer­chant, Ro­maine Mor­ris, Paul Palmer, Jeav­or Roy­al, Odean Smith, Al­daine Thomas, Os­hane Thomas; An­dre Co­ley (Head Coach).

RED FORCE TOUR­NA­MENT FIX­TURES

Feb 11: Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons v Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force – Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Sta­di­um

Feb 13: Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes v Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force – Coolidge Crick­et Ground

Feb 15: Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force v Bar­ba­dos Pride – Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Sta­di­um

Feb 17: Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes v Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force – Coolidge Crick­et Ground

Feb 20: Guyana Jaguars v Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Force – Coolidge Crick­et Ground

FI­NAL FOUR

Feb 24: SE­MI-FI­NAL 1 – Coolidge Crick­et Ground

Feb 25: SE­MI-FI­NAL 2 – Coolidge Crick­et Ground


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