Nothing can stop ‘Young Guns’ now

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s young cricketers yesterday crossed their biggest hurdle in the regional President’s Cup limited overs tournament by beating an experienced Barbados side in their backyard. And there is nothing to prevent them from going all the way in Sunday’s final and win a major West Indies Championship, their first in eight years. This is the opinion of team manager Omar Khan yesterday who described the win —  by 11 runs according to the Duckwork/Lewis System — as fantastic and reflected the “character” of the players. “Even when Barbados made 276 we always thought we had the batting capability to made a successful run chase. The ground was not very big and the wicket was ideal for batting. And with the team’s ‘never-say-die’ attitude we were confident,” said Khan in a telephone interview yesterday.

Trinidad and Tobago were 256 for five wickets in 46.2 overs when bad light prematurely ended play at the Windward Club in St Philip Parish. He said he always felt that defeating Barbados was going to be a difficult task, made especially so by the fact that they were playing at home with the support of their fans firmly behind them. “They had an experienced side with a West Indies bowling attack including Corey Collymore, Pedro Collins and Ian Bradshaw. But the way we are playing now I think we can beat anybody,” said Khan. He said the Trinidad and Tobago bowlers had done well to contain the Barbadian batsmen up to the 40th over and singled out “Man-of-the-Match” Sherwin Ganga and Imran Jan who together bowled 20 overs giving away only 56 runs. But then things fell apart as the Barbadian batsmen made merry posting more than 100 runs in the final ten overs to rachet up the final score which on paper looked unassailable.

“The bowlers lost it in the final ten overs because they were not bowling to instructions but then again at that stage in the match it was happy hour,” said Khan. The manager once again praised the intelligent batting of Sherwin Ganga, his elder brother and captain Daren and Ricardo Powell who in the end, despite three chances propelled the scoring along to overtake the Barbadians and clinch the victory when the umpires offered light to the batsmen with 22 balls left. Also making invaluable contributions with the bat were Gregory Mahabir, Shazam Babwah and Dinesh Ramdin who once again played a level-headed innings to steer his team home. Khan said his next challenge is to keep the players focused and guard them against complacency making sure they do not get carried away by their recent success which has surprised even their most ardent supporters back here at home.

“We take a rest tomorrow (Friday)  and may watch a part of the other semi-final between the Windward Islands and Guyana. But it’s back to practice on Saturday getting ready for the final,” said Khan. He said he has no preference as to who the opponents may be in the final as Trinidad and Tobago  have a bone to pick with either team having been beaten by both in the preliminary stage of the competition last week in Guyana. “We have not finished the job as yet and I intend to let the players stay aware of what is left to be done. But we are almost there,” said Khan. The final of the competition for US $10,000 and the President’s Cup will be staged on Sunday at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown.