Fighting TT cricketers out to beat Bajans again

Trinidad and Tobago cricket captain Daren Ganga is very optimistic that his team can get the better of arch-rivals Barbados in the President’s Cup Limited-overs semi-final scheduled for Barbados tomorrow. Ganga and his much-improved team showed character and fighting spirit in edging out the Leeward Islands in their final preliminary round match contested at the Uitvlugt Regional Community Centre ground on Sunday. Along with defending champions Guyana, last year’s runner-up Barbados and Windward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago players are in Barbados where the semi-finals and the final will be contested. West Indies ICC Champions Cup hero Courtney Browne led Barbados to the top of the preliminary rounds standings with three victories plus three bonus points. The Windwards, with former Test player Rawle Lewis at the helm, showed remarkable team spirit and superb ground fielding which catapult them to second spot on 14 points from three victories and plus two valuable bonus points.

Among their victories was the nerve-wracking one-run win over Trinidad and Tobago at the Enmore Regional Community Centre Ground on Saturday. But Ganga and his boys were able to recover from that shock defeat and lift their overall performances to stop the buoyant Leewards, which defeated Guyana at the Albion Regional Sports Complex on Thursday last. Trinidad and Tobago created the biggest upset of the tournament when they whipped the mighty Barbadians by three wickets in the opening round match contested at the Enmore Ground. And then followed up with another impressive victory over the star-studded Jamaicans at Bourda. Despite their losses to Guyana and Windwards, they bounced back and are now looking ahead to their semi-final encounter with Barbados with much optimism.

A beaming Ganga later described his team’s victory over Leewards. “It was a real test of our character. We had to win to qualify for the semi-finals. We never gave up despite losing too many wickets in the first half of the innings. The guys lived up to expectations as they did in the other matches,” he said. “I had confidence in the lower order batsmen especially when Omari Banks had completed his overs. Dinesh (Ramdin) was brilliant once again with the bat and with Richard Kelly, we were able to accelerate the scoring rate. Samuel Badree and Rodney Sooklal also batted brilliantly and gave us a reasonable total to defend. “All the bowlers worked hard on a pitch which was very good for batting but once we picked up wickets, the pressure was always going to get to them. Our catching and fielding were exceptional in this match and we will take a lot of positives in our game against Barbados,” Ganga said.

Ganga, the West Indies “A” team captain, was very happy to be in the semi-finals. “Although Barbados will be playing at home, we will go into the match with the confidence that we can beat them again. We beat them in the first round match at Enmore and feel confident that we can do it again. TT has not won the Limited-Overs title since 1996 and we will be fighting hard to get to the final and do something to make our country proud,” he said. “It has been a very long time that we have not won any title at the regional senior level and this team will be giving it our best shot to bring home the Cup. And we want to thank all the people back home who kept faith in us and also prayed for us,” he said. “We are not depending on any particular player in the team to do the job. It’s been a united team effort and I am really happy with the response from all the players. We know that the Barbados team will be competitive. We will try to match them and come out victorious,” he said.