T&T’s Su­per50 prepa­ra­tions once again hit a bump as its lat­est prac­tice match at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va was aban­doned due to a wet out­field on Mon­day.

The play­ers were re­signed to an out­door net train­ing ses­sion in­stead. It was a set­back for play­ers with­in the 22-man pro­vi­sion­al squad who are hop­ing to make a last-minute case for se­lec­tion in the fi­nal 15 which is due to be named af­ter Wednes­day’s prac­tice which is set for the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, T&T all-rounder Yan­nic Cari­ah, who has al­so been a cap­tain of one of the prac­tice teams dur­ing the five match­es so far said he’s not al­low­ing the se­lec­tors’ job to dis­tract him from what he needs to do.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Mon­day as his col­leagues went through the nets ses­sion, Cari­ah said, “For me, per­son­al­ly, I’m see­ing some im­prove­ment in my game, most im­por­tant­ly. I think we have to con­tin­ue do­ing the sim­ple things well and keep work­ing on strengths and im­prove on our weak­ness­es. Yes, the side hasn’t been picked as yet but it’s go­ing to be tough for every­one. It’s go­ing to be tough to get a look in be­cause the se­nior play­ers are back but I can on­ly con­trol what I can con­trol and that is my per­for­mances and what I do to get bet­ter.”

While Cari­ah is hap­py to back on the field of play, he said he used the lock­down pe­ri­od last year to work on both his phys­i­cal fit­ness as well as the men­tal side of his game. “I think it’s been a very long lay­off, but it was a per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty, at least for me, to work on my body and get back my body back to how it was. At the end of the day, I’m get­ting old­er,” said the 28-year-old. He fur­ther ex­plained, “I al­so worked on my mind as well so for me, per­son­al­ly, I took the pos­i­tives out of the long lay­off and I’m wait­ing pa­tient­ly for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play more games.”

Mean­while, fel­low T&T spin­ner Im­ran Khan didn’t hide his frus­tra­tion hav­ing watched an­oth­er prac­tice match turn in­to a prac­tice ses­sion. “It’s a bit frus­trat­ing, I must be hon­est. Match prac­tice and match fit­ness are key go­ing in­to a tour­na­ment that is less than a month away. Nev­er­the­less, we have to keep fo­cused. I still think it’s build­ing up nice­ly for the T&T team and all the play­ers are ea­ger for the Su­per50.”

Khan went on to say de­spite the weath­er damp­en­ing the prac­tice match­es, spir­its have been high in the dress­ing room. “Every­one is pos­i­tive and in a clear frame of mind. By now, every­one should know their roles. The good thing about play­ing the next match at the Queen’s Park Oval is that rain or no rain we should get some crick­et in there.”

With weath­er per­mit­ting, the Red Force is sched­uled to play an­oth­er prac­tice match at the Oval from 9:30 am to­mor­row. The team is ex­pect­ed to leave on Jan­u­ary 26th with the tour­na­ment start­ing on Feb­ru­ary 9th.

Red Force 22-Man Squad

Kieron Pol­lard (Capt), Nicholas Pooran, Sunil Nar­ine, Jyd Goolie, Tion Web­ster, Jadon Seales, Khary Pierre, Mark Deyal, Evin Lewis, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Ravi Ram­paul, Isi­ah Ra­jah, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Yan­nick Cari­ah, An­der­son Phillip, Akeal Ho­sein, Reyaad Em­rit, Ter­rance Hinds, Im­ran Khan, Lendl Sim­mons and De­nesh Ramdin. Dwayne J Bra­vo is the team's Men­tor.