Chief selector puts faith in young guns

Dudnath Ramkeesoon, chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago selection panel, believes the addition of younger players to the men’s national team for the West Indies limited-overs cricket championship can benefit the side. With five top players sidelined through injury, TT enter the championship, starting on Saturday in Guyana, less confident than if the full team was available. Jonathan Augustus, a member of the Young West Indies side that reached the final of the ICC Youth World Cup Bangladesh 2004, and fellow all-rounder Earnil Ryan, as well as fast bowler Theodore Modeste have been added to the squad as late replacements for the injured Brian Lara, Mervyn Dillon and Dwayne Bravo. “They won’t bring the experience of Lara and Dillon, but what they will bring is youthful enthusiasm,” Ramkessoon told CMC Radio Sports.

“They are fit, technically competent to handle the competition at the higher level and they are good team players and once they perform to their abilities they would add value to the team in the absence of the experienced players.” Bravo strained a hamstring during a charity match for hurricane-affected countries in Barbados last week, Dillon has not fully recovered from a side strain that limited him to just one match for champions West Indies in the recent ICC Champions Trophy in Britain, and Lara has been ordered to rest a series of niggling injuries. Their withdrawal means that TT will depend heavily on the efforts of captain Daren Ganga, a West Indies opening batman, and Jamaican-born West Indies all rounder Ricardo Powell to put them in winning positions. The TT squad is scheduled to leave today for Guyana with high hopes of making an impression against their more fancied opponents.

TT  Squad: Daren Ganga (captain), Jonathan Augustus, Shazam Babwah, Samuel Badree, Reyad Emrit, Sherwin Ganga, Imran Jan, Richard Kelly, Gregory Mahabir, Theodore Modeste, Ricardo Powell, Dinesh Ramdin, Earnil Ryan, Rodney Sooklal. (CMC)