TT face fancied Barbados

GEORGETOWN: Last year’s beaten finalist Barbados and a depleted Trinidad and Tobago will meet in one of two first round matches when the West Indies limited-overs cricket championship opens today. Barbados with the region’s latest cricket hero Courtney Browne at the helm will travel 30 miles east of the capital to oppose Trinidad and Tobago at Enmore. Included in the Barbados team is also Ian Bradshaw, one of the heroes in the West Indies’ triumph in the recent ICC Champions Trophy in England. West Indies players Ryan Hinds, Dwayne Smith, Corey Collymore, Pedro Collins and the experience Sherwin Campbell are also in the powerful Barbadian line-up. The Barbadians will definitely start favourites for this match and the tournament in which they have not been as dominant as they have been in the longer version of the regional competition. Trinidad and Tobago’s hopes of winning their first title since 1996 have been placed in jeopardy with five of their key players forced to pull out of today’s opener.

Injuries have sidelined West Indies captain Brian Lara, all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, fast bowlers Mervyn Dillon and Ravi Rampaul. A vehicular accident a week ago has also sidelined former Young West Indies batsman Lendl Simmons. West Indies “B” left-handed batsman Gregory Mahabir has replaced Lara, while another regional youth player Jonathan Augustus comes in as a replacement for Bravo. Fast bowler Theodore Modeste and batsman Earnil Ryan have replaced Dillon and Simmons respectively. Rampaul was not included in the  original 14-man squad selected for the tournament. The TT team will be led by West Indies batsman Daren Ganga and will include another West Indies batsman —  Jamaican-born Ricardo Powell. Former West Indies youth captain Denesh Ramdin and multi-talented allrounder Richard Kelly are the newcomers in the team. Reyad Emrit will spearhead the attack with support from Kelly and Modeste, as well as the lone specialist spinner on the team, Rodney Sooklal. In the other match carded for Saturday, Jamaica, led by off-spin all-rounder Gareth Breese, will oppose Windward Islands at Bourda Oval.

The Jamaicans will start favourites in this encounter against opponents who are definitely short of practice due to the effects of Hurricane Ivan. Because of the devastation cause by Hurricane Ivan to Grenada, this year’s Windwards limited-overs tourney was cancelled and reduced the regional competition to one round of preliminary matches. Grenada was originally carded to host both the Windwards’ tourney and phase two of the regional competition. The semifinals and final are carded for Barbados at the end of the month. This year’s competition sees two main changes from recent years with the elimination of fledgling teams and the introduction of a bonus points system. In addition to four points for a win, a bonus point is awarded for the winning team recording a run-rate at least 1.25 times that of the opposition, for the bowling team which dismisses the opposition, batting second, within four/fifths of the target, for the winning team scoring at least twice the rate of the opposition, or for the winning team bowling second dismissing opponents for less than half the target. (CMC)