T&T Un­der-19 women’s crick­et skip­per Sama­ra Ram­nath and her team­mates will be brim­ming with con­fi­dence head­ing in­to their open­ing match of the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Ris­ing Stars Women’s Un­der-19 Women Cham­pi­onship set to bowl off Thurs­day.

The host coun­try, coached by Gibran Mo­hammed, will face off against Guyana U-19s in their open­er at Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do look­ing to con­tin­ue its win­ning ways from last week’s warm-up se­ries against Bar­ba­dos.

The young T&T Red Force Di­vas, who are the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on, en­ter the six-team com­pe­ti­tion with three straight wins in the se­ries against the Bar­ba­di­ans played at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va.

T&T won the open­ing match of the prepa­ra­tion se­ries by a huge nine wick­ets on Mon­day with Ram­nath lead­ing the scor­ing with an un­beat­en 45 open­ing the bat­ting for the Di­vas. In the sec­ond match on Tues­day, T&T again bat­ted sec­ond and won by three wick­ets, this time led by the all­round per­for­mance of Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran, who was among the lead­ing wick­et-tak­ers with 2-14, and bat­ting down the low­er or­der top­scored with 14. Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal claimed 2-9 for the win­ning side.

On Thurs­day in the third and fi­nal match in the se­ries, the Di­vas sealed a 26-run vic­to­ry af­ter bat­ting first. Ram­nath led the bat­ting with 67 not out to claim T&T’s third win in the warmups.

Two oth­er venues will be used in the com­pe­ti­tion in­clud­ing the Sir Frank Wor­rell Memo­r­i­al Ground, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) in St Au­gus­tine and the Diego Mar­tin Sports Com­plex (DM­SC).

In to­day’s oth­er match­es, al­so at BLCA, Lee­ward Is­lands will take on Bar­ba­dos, UWI SPEC, at 2.30 pm and the Wind­ward Is­lands meet Ja­maica in the fi­nal match at 7 pm in Diego Mar­tin. The teams will get a rest day on Fri­day and re­sume on Sat­ur­day with match­es.

In last year’s fi­nal, T&T de­feat­ed Wind­wards by 37 runs at UWI SPEC.

T&T

Team: Sama­ra Ram­nath (cap­tain), KD Jazz Mitchell (vice cap­tain), Keni­ka Cas­sar, Delian­nys José Es­pinoza (over­seas play­er), Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran, Za­kiyah Har­ri­lal, Ki­rah Man­paul, Za­heera Mo­hit, Sameera Naidoo, Kristi­na Naipaul, Jes­si­ca O'Rosco, Tu­mi­ka Brid­get Pha­goo, Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal, Ka­t­ri­na Ruben.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Gibran Mo­hammed (coach), Nadra Dwari­ka-Bap­tiste (man­ag­er), Can­dice Joseph (S&C Train­er).

Match­es

To­mor­row (At BLCA)

T&T vs Guyana, 10 am

Lee­wards vs Bar­ba­dos, 2.30 pm

Wind­wards vs Ja­maica, 7 pm

Sat­ur­day

Wind­wards vs Bar­ba­dos, BLCA, 10 am

T&T vs Lee­wards, UWIS­PEC, 10 am

Guyana vs Ja­maica, DM­SC, 10 am

Sun­day

Bar­ba­dos vs Guyana, BLCA, 10 am

T&T vs Ja­maica, UWIS­PEC, 10 am

Lee­wards vs Wind­wards, DM­SC, 10 am

Tues­day

T&T vs Wind­wards, BLCA, 10 am

Ja­maica vs Bar­ba­dos, UWIS­PEC, 10 am

Guyana vs Lee­wards, DM­SC, 10 am

Ju­ly 11

Ja­maica vs Lee­wards, BLCA, 10 am

Guyana vs Wind­wards, UWIS­PEC, 10 am

T&T vs Bar­ba­dos, DM­SC, 10 am

Ju­ly 13

Fi­nal, BLCA, 10 am

5th-6th Play­off, UWIS­PEC, 10 am

3rd- 4th Play­off, DM­SC, 10 am