T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) chair­man of se­lec­tors Ra­jen­dra Man­galie has de­fend­ed the se­lec­tion of the Red Force’s Su­per50 squad as sev­er­al star per­form­ers from the prac­tice match­es failed to make the 15-man squad for the tour­na­ment.

“At the end of the day, it’s on­ly 15 play­ers we can pick but those like Tion Web­ster, Isa­iah Ra­jah, Jyd Goolie are al­so good play­ers vy­ing for se­lec­tion but at the end of the day, this is an im­por­tant year for T&T crick­et and at this point, as I say again, it’s on­ly 15 that could be picked and that’s the best we could have come up with at the time,” Man­galie, a for­mer na­tion­al all­rounder told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Mon­day.

The likes of Yan­nic Cari­ah scored an un­beat­en 104 be­fore New Year’s and was cap­tain of two prac­tice match teams, while both Tion Web­ster and Jyd Goolie who al­so scored cen­turies be­fore Christ­mas last year all did not make the cut in the fi­nal squad set to trav­el on Jan­u­ary 26 to An­tigua for the tour­na­ment which is card­ed to start on Feb­ru­ary 7th.

Man­galie, who served as a mem­ber of the 2020 se­lec­tion com­mit­tee be­fore he was el­e­vat­ed to the chair­man­ship po­si­tion in Nove­me­ber 2019, said he per­son­al­ly tele­phoned all 22 play­ers on the pro­vi­sion­al squad and had a con­ver­sa­tion with them about their se­lec­tion or non-se­lec­tion. Man­galie said he ex­plained to them, “At the end of the day, on­ly 15 could be se­lect­ed but you have to con­tin­ue prac­tic­ing be­cause the four-day tour­na­ment is com­ing in April so you have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty ad­dress the se­lec­tors.”

Mean­while, vet­er­an T&T all-rounder Rayad Em­rit will weigh his op­tions for the rest of the sea­son af­ter al­so not mak­ing the squad. “It is dis­ap­point­ing, but I have to do what I have to do now and fo­cus on what is in front of me,” Em­rit said on Mon­day. The pac­er will now jet off to Dubai for the Abu Dhabi T10 com­pe­ti­tion which be­gins on Jan­u­ary 28th. He will rep­re­sent North­ern War­riors in the tour­na­ment. When it comes to the up­com­ing first class sea­son, Em­rit , 39, a for­mer West In­dies ODI play­er, said he will dis­cuss his fu­ture in T&T crick­et with head coach David Fur­longe. “I’ll have to sit with the coach and find out what ex­act­ly they need from me go­ing for­ward and if they need me in the first class set-up, I am avail­able. If not, I will see if I can play in the T20 fran­chise leagues abroad.”

Em­rit said he is still com­mit­ted to both play­ing and help­ing the Red Force off the field of play. He added, “I am very com­mit­ted to play crick­et for T&T, al­ways has been and al­ways will be. That hasn’t changed. My com­mit­ment to T&T crick­et no one can ques­tion it but there is a lot of work to be done with the young­sters so my role will def­i­nite­ly be help­ing the fast-bowlers try­ing to get them to the peak of West In­dies crick­et.”

The Red Force will prac­tice to­day through Thurs­day at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre. How­ev­er, sev­er­al play­ers will be miss­ing as they head off to the Abu Dhabi T10 tour­na­ment while some are in Bangladesh for the West In­dies tour.