Babwah, Sooklal captains in cricket trial matches

Hard-hitting middle-order batsman Shazam Babwah and off-spinner Rodney Sooklal will be at the helm of the teams which will be involved in the first four-day trial match organised by the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board. The match starts today at Gilbert Park, Brechin Castle and will continue tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. Play starts at 10 am each day. Chairman of selectors Dudnath Ram-kissoon and his colleagues Roland Sampath and David Williams are hoping for good weather to allow uninterrupted play. The players have been involved in exercises involving physical fitness, batting, bowling and catching at the National Cricket Centre Ground and the Sir Frank Worrell Development Centre since last Monday.

The sessions were supervised by coach Williams and trainer Gerard Garcia. Some of the players missed days especially Lendl Simmons and Aneil Kanhai whose wife gave birth to their first baby. Kanhai has not attended sessions since and he was not considered for the first trial match. Simmons missed three days but showed up and has been working out with the squad. Since players absenteeism has been highlighted in the media last year, the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board have instituted a new culture and procedure for all players called up for practice and trials. Many outstanding and even talented players have fallen by the wayside because of their own indiscretions and not wanting to abide with the system put in place to get everyone more dedicated and disciplined.

The team is preparing for the regional Carib Beer Series which gets underway with the opening round match against Guyana at the National Cricket Centre from January 7. Talented West indies youth opener Tishan Maraj, who made an impressive senior debut in this year’s Carib Beer Series with two half-centuries and topped Trinidad and Tobago’s overall batting averages, will miss at least the first two days because of examinations at the UWI’s Faculty of Medicine, Eric Williams Medical Complex, Mount Hope. Maraj enrolled in September and is a First Year student but because of studies he had to miss out of the action during the President’s Cup.

Sooklal leads Team “A” which comprise Jonathan Augustus, Samuel Felix, Lendl Simmons, Imran Jan, Kenton Thompson, Samuel Badree, Petrock Nicholas, Dave Mohammed, Reyad Emrit, Kyron Lynch, Rishard Harris and Ravi Rampaul.

Babwah leads Team “B” which includes Imran Khan, Earnil Ryan, Gregory Mahabir, Richard Kelly, Gibran Mohammed, Rishi Bachan, Sanjeev Gooljar, Amit Jaggerg-nauth, Theodore Mo-deste, Avalon Cuffy, Tishan Maraj and Andre Browne.