T&T Un­der-19 crick­et team be­gins its quest for the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Ris­ing Stars U-19 glo­ry Thursday at the St Paul’s Sports Com­plex in Bas­seterre, St Kitts against USA 2 from 10 am.

Led by Aa­di­an Racha, who was part of the T&T se­nior team in the first two CWI First Class Cham­pi­onships this year, the bowl­ing is ex­pect­ed to be the key for the young play­ers.

Racha will be sup­port­ed by cap­tain Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin, for­mer U-17 cap­tain Fa­reez Ali and left-arm seam­er Alexan­der Chase as the four-prong pace at­tack can be the en­vy of their re­gion­al peers.

Head coach, for­mer na­tion­al bats­man Earnil Ryan is ex­pect­ing the bowlers to come good and main­tain the rep­u­ta­tion they ar­rived in St Kitts with.

“I think the strength of the team lies with­in the bowl­ing as­pect,” Ryan said.

This does not mean the bat­ting is weak. Luke Ali has been in su­perb form this year. The Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Ch­agua­nas crick­eter was named the Sec­ondary Schools Crick­et League In­ter­col ‘Most Valu­able Play­er’, while U-17 cap­tain Bren­dan Boodoo was Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do’s best bats­man and was named most out­stand­ing bat­ter in the Schools In­ter­col Com­pe­ti­tion.

Riyaad Mo­hammed was the top bats­man in the school league two years ago and a lead­ing bats­man in the U-17 team, led by the coach Reyad Em­rit. The Vic­to­ria bats­man has found his way back in the na­tion­al fold and is set to de­but with the U-19 team.

Stevon Gomez was named most out­stand­ing bat­ter in the school cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion and is ex­pect­ed to ex­tend his form in St Kitts.

De­spite the big names in the strong bat­ting line-up, Ryan iden­ti­fied the strength in the bowl­ing de­part­ment.

“We have a re­al va­ri­ety and a vast op­tion where bowl­ing is con­cerned. Through­out the tour­na­ment in the U-19s this year, I think that our high­er-or­der bats­men didn’t re­al­ly stand out that much. What re­al­ly stood out was mid­dle-or­der and low­er-or­der bats­men do­ing the job,” Ryan said.

Ryan ex­plained that the bowlers al­so con­tributed heav­i­ly with the bat in hand say­ing: “So for in­stance, Top­pin would have the most runs in the tour­na­ment. And he would have been a low­er-or­der bats­man or a mid­dle-or­der bats­man. So I think that where we are strong, would be mid­dle-or­der bats­men to low­er-or­der bats­men as well.”

Ryan is ex­pect­ing ace bowler Racha to lead, and use ex­pe­ri­ence from rub­bing shoul­ders with Red Force se­nior play­ers dur­ing Red Force tri­als and the North-South Clas­sic ear­li­er this year.

“Racha has come a long way,” Ryan said. “His ma­tu­ri­ty lev­el has im­proved al­most 50-60% since last year and a cou­ple of years be­fore. He is a lot stronger, he is fit­ter. He un­der­stands ex­act­ly what it takes to per­form at a re­gion­al lev­el.”

This is Racha’s sec­ond stint with the U-19 team hav­ing played for both the U-17 and U-19 teams in 2024 and the U-17 team in 2023.

“I think that would have done him a whole heap of good,” Ryan said.

T&T U-19 team

Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin (c ), Cris­t­ian Ram­per­sad (vc), Riyaad Mo­hammed, Luke Ali, Bren­dan Boodoo, Fa­reez Ali, Aa­di­an Racha, Zachary Madray, Cris­tiano Ra­manan, Aneal Rooplal, Aaron Bas­ant, Alexan­der Chase, Chris­t­ian Lall and Stevon Gomez. Man­ag­er: Ker­win John. COach: Earnil Ryan.

Thurs­day’s match­es

At St Mary’ Park: Ja­maica vs USA 1

At Elqueme­do Wil­let Park: Bar­ba­dos vs Guyana

At St Paul’s Sports Com­plex: T&T vs USA 2

At Cona­ree: Lee­ward Is­lands vs Wind­ward Is­lands