Leg-spin­ner Im­ran Khan has been named as cap­tain of the T&T Red Force crick­et team for the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed re­turn of the 2022 Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Re­gion­al Four Day tour­na­ment next month.

Khan takes over from Dar­ren Bra­vo cap­tained the Red Force four-day team for the 2020 com­pe­ti­tion, which end­ed pre­ma­ture­ly in March of that year at the out­break of the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Khan, 37, of Cen­tral Sports Crick­et Club, is not new to the lead­er­ship of the Red Force team, hav­ing skip­pered the Su­per50 team to the se­mi-fi­nals of the 2019 tour­na­ment. He was the four-day team's sec­ond-lead­ing wick­et-tak­er in the trun­cat­ed 2020 tour­na­ment with 18 scalps, sec­ond on­ly to Akeal Ho­sein who claimed 21 wick­ets. Khan will have Joshua Da Sil­va as his deputy, with the young West In­dies test match cus­to­di­an thrust in­to the role for­mer­ly oc­cu­pied by an­oth­er dis­tin­guished West In­dies wick­et-keep­er Di­nesh Ramdin.

"I think we have a good bal­ance. In all the de­part­ments we have ex­pe­ri­ence and youth, " head coach David Fur­longe told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day. "In the fast-bowl­ing de­part­ment, there is Shan­non Gabriel with young­sters - Jay­den Seales, An­der­son Phillip and Ter­rence Hinds. The same in the spin de­part­ment where you have Im­ran (Khan) men­tor­ing Bryan Charles and Khary Pierre."

"The bats­men will take lead from an­oth­er se­nior man Ja­son Mo­hammed."

T&T be­gins the 2022 tour­na­ment cam­paign with back-to-back match­es at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my, Tarou­ba, tak­ing on Ja­maica (Feb­ru­ary 9-12) and the Wind­ward Is­lands (Feb­ru­ary 15-18).

Fur­longe told Guardian Me­dia Sports, "We have ramped up our train­ing and are now train­ing ba­si­cal­ly eight per day. We are giv­ing the bats­men length­i­er times at the wick­et. Each bats­man is bat­ting for an hour to an hour and a half. We have al­so brought out some ex­tra bowlers to as­sist. We will train for the re­main­der of this week un­til Fri­day and again on Mon­day and Tues­day at the venue (BLCA) in prepa­ra­tion for the game on Wednes­day."

2022 CWI Re­gion­al 4-Day Com­pe­ti­tion

RED FORCE SQUAD

Im­ran Khan (c), Khary Pierre, Joshua Da Sil­va (vc), Ter­rance Hinds, Je­re­my Solozano, An­der­son Phillip, Kea­gan Sim­mons, Jay­den Seales, Jyd Goolie, Isa­iah Ra­jah, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Kirstan Kallicha­ran, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Bryan Charles and Shan­non Gabriel.

Fix­tures

T&T vs Ja­maica - Feb 9-12

T&T vs Wind­ward Is­lands - Feb 15-18