T&T be­gins its de­fence of the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup, which they won in 2023 against the Lee­ward Is­lands, Wednes­day against Bar­ba­dos Pride at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do.

The Red Force is still the reign­ing cham­pi­on af­ter last year’s fi­nal­ists, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos, did not take the field due to lengthy rain de­lays at BLCA.

​Cap­tain Joshua Da Sil­va, who has played 33 Tests for West In­dies, is look­ing for a bright start against the re­gion­al pow­er­house.

“We’ve had a lot of prac­tice ses­sions right here in Cou­va,” Da Sil­va ex­plained. “We had quite a few prac­tice games and tri­al match­es, and we saw a num­ber of guys put their hand up and show the form that they have. A re­al­ly good team this year, and hope­ful­ly we can go all the way.”

​Among the play­ers the wick­et­keep­er-bats­man can count on is Navin Bidaisee, who im­pressed in his first stint in the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) to the point of earn­ing a place in the West In­dies team that played Nepal in three T20s in Oc­to­ber.

​“We’ve seen Sha­trughan Ram­baran, Cephas Coop­er, and all those guys put their hand up in the tri­al match­es, which is re­al­ly good to see. They’ve been bang­ing on the door in this for­mat for quite some time, so it’s nice to see some new faces come around and be in the set­up.”

De­spite not hav­ing the quar­tet of Jay­den Seales, An­der­son Phillip, Khary Pierre, and Akeal Ho­sein, all out on West In­dies du­ty, Da Sil­va is hap­py to have the ser­vices of play­ers of high qual­i­ty with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

​“We have Joshua James, Ter­rence Hinds, and Bryan Charles. We have Ricky Jaipaul, who hasn’t played for Trinidad for quite some time, but he’s been bowl­ing re­al­ly well. He took the most wick­ets in the tri­al match­es.”

Jaipaul has been con­sis­tent with the ball in re­cent years and has been lead­ing the bowl­ing for the Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots in the last cou­ple of sea­sons in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion One. He will be one of a quar­tet of spin­ners that in­cludes two se­nior West In­dies legspin­ners in Yan­nick Cari­ah and Bidaisee.

“Yan­nick Cari­ah has been bowl­ing well. He came off an in­jury, but he’s up to full fit­ness run­ning in­to this tour­na­ment. Navin Bidasiee was bowl­ing re­al­ly well, com­ing off from West In­dies crick­et. We have Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin, who is com­ing to the team at a young­ster. He’s bowl­ing at a good pace. I’m ex­cit­ed to un­leash him against, hope­ful­ly, when he gets his op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Top­pin led the T&T Un­der-19 team to the Crick­et West In­dies Ris­ing Stars U-19 tour­na­ment ear­li­er this year.

“It’ll be nice to see these guys put up their hands with the op­por­tu­ni­ty that they’re get­ting. We have a core team, I would say, and we have a re­al­ly good set­up this year.”

Mean­while, the op­po­nents to­day, Bar­ba­dos Pride, with the leg­endary Desmond Haynes as­sist­ing with the coach­ing, wel­come the re­turn of the ex­pe­ri­enced Akeem Jor­dan and Ny­eem Young, who grad­u­at­ed from the West In­dies Acad­e­my in­to their line-up that is miss­ing vet­er­an for­mer cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er, and West In­dies cap­tains Shai Hope and Ros­ton Chase are al­so out on in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty.

The first ball this morn­ing is at 9 am.

Wednes­day’s match­es

At Queen’s Park Oval: Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes vs Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes, 9 am

At BLCA: Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons vs Guyana Harpy Ea­gles, 2 pm

At UWI Spec: T&T Red Force vs Bar­ba­dos Pride, 9 am