By Marlon Munroe
Defending champions Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) and last year’s runners up Barbados square off in today’s first day/night semi-final at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence in the WICB President’s Cup 50-overs Tournament from 13:30 hours.
After rain washed out seven matches in two days T&T, which topped Zone A with seven points, will take on their old nemesis Barbados, runners up of Zone B for a place in the final.
Hosts Guyana, who topped Zone B with nine points from two completed games and one no result will play the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) tomorrow at the same venue.
The tournament will climax with Thursday’s final.
Today’s match, weather permitting, should see a keen contest especially from T&T Champions League Twenty20 runners up and hopefully Barbados will lift the standard of their play on the field in the process. Barbados, for the most part was made to struggle against the West Indies Under-19 and simply rolled over and died against Guyana.
Barbados should be concerned too about their poor batting displays with the batsmen not firing the way they can in their two matches.
In their match against the WI Under-19s they struggled to 176-8 in 38.5 overs after the game was reduced to 40 overs-a-side and, in their second match against Guyana at Albion they were struggling at 120-7 before an 82-run partnership between Sulieman Benn (39) and Khaled Springer (35) propelled their score to some measure of respectability.
They eventually ended on 231-9.
Barbados’ bowling line up on paper has credibility with Benn, Kemar Roach and Tino Best playing international cricket for the West Indies. However, Best was all over the park and 44 runs were taken off his six overs at Albion; Benn and Roach kept things tight in both matches and to a large extent many of the bowlers suffered at the hands of some poor fielding from some overweight players.
T&T on the other hand, arriving the night before the tournament, continued their form from the recently-concluded IPL Champions League Twenty20 tournament in India where they lost the final to New South Wales, outplayed Jamaica by 90 runs at the stadium in their first round encounter. Although Darren Bravo top scored with 43, their bowling was penetrative and their fielders supported well.
Subsequently, all the other matches in Zone A were washed out but T&T Captain Daren Ganga had earlier stated that his team had a job to despite the exhaustion his squad feels. He noted that they are here to retain their title.
Ganga explained, “We are professionals and sometimes this is what the game requires us to do so, we have to make the adjustment. We know that coming from a 20-over game to a 50-overs-a-side game would mean a lot of work and quick adjustment to our game. We have had a good start and I hope we can carry on and continue doing Trinidad & Tobago proud.”
Trinidad & Tobago (from): Daren Ganga (captain), Adrian Barath, Samuel Badree, Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Sherwin Ganga, Imran Khan, Dave Mohammed, William Perkins, Kieron Pollard, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Lendl Simmons and Navin Stewart.
Barbados (from): Ryan Hinds (captain), Sulieman Benn, Tino Best, Rashidi Boucher, Jonathan Carter, Nikolai Charles, Fidel Edwards, Kirk Edwards, Alcindo Holder, Carlo Morris, Martin Nurse, Kemar Roach, Dwayne Smith and Kevin Stoute.
