TT best at chasing target — Ganga

NATIONAL cricket captain Daren Ganga has described Sunday’s four-wicket win over Guyana in the final of the West Indies limited-overs championship as the highlight of his Trinidad and Tobago career so far. The 25-year-old Ganga was speaking at the Piarco International Airport yesterday following the team’s return from Barbados, the scene of their nail-biting victory over the 2003 title-holders. “I thought the guys played well,” he said. “It was the first major title that I’ve won as a captain. Many times I’ve been in semi-finals, I even lost in a final as well. “This is really special to me and I’m sure it’s special to every single player of the Trinidad and Tobago team and the guys are just basking in the glory right now.”

Most of Trinidad and Tobago’s victories in the tournament materialised after successful run-chases, during the preliminary rounds in Guyana. This was the case again inThursday’s semi-final against hosts Barbados and in the final against the Shivnarine Chanderpaul-led Guyanese. Captain Ganga was philosophical about the team’s strengths and weaknesses. “Our strength was in our batting and in one-day cricket, when you look at all the matches we’ve played, in the ‘prelims’, in the semi-finals and in the final, it’s only in two that we’ve batted first —  against Guyana and the Leeward Islands,” he pointed out. “So we realised that our strength was chasing (targets) that’s why every time we (won) the toss we inserted the opposition.

It was all a matter of assessing things, we assessed what we wanted to do, (we) went out (on the field) and executed well,” he said. Another major talking-point was the team’s rise in the face of adversity, due to the absence of the likes of Brian Lara, Dwayne Bravo, Mervyn Dillon, Ravi Rampaul, Lendl Simmons, Tishan Maraj, Aneil Kanhai, Amit Jaggernauth and Dave “Tadpole” Mohammed. Instead, the leading players for the TT team included Daren’s younger brother Sherwin (adjudged the best batsman and best bowler of the Final Four phase), Richard Kelly, Reyad Emrit, Dinesh Ramdhin, Shazam Babwah, Imran Jan and Jamaican-born Ricardo Powell. “I can’t say much about the leading players,” admitted captain Ganga. “What I know is that the younger guys knew there were big shoes to fill. It’s not that we’ve been winning tournaments but every single player was willing to give 110 percent for Trinidad and Tobago cricket and we did that,” he said.