Red Force coach eyes victory in Barbados

Trinidad and Tobago Red Force coach Kelvin Williams is optimistic that Kensington Oval will be a venue to enjoy when the opening round of the Cricket West Indies Regional Four-Day tournament bowls off at Kensington Oval tomorrow.

In the penultimate round of the 2016/2017 season, Red Force defeated Pride by 130 runs at Kensington Oval in a day/night fixture. The teams will meet this season at the same venue in a day/night fixture starting at 3 pm in the opening round of this year’s campaign. Williams said his team’s victory over the Pride last season was not recent, but he is hopeful his team can get another win against their fierce rivals.

“That was a long time ago but I expect that (trend) to continue. Basically it is the same group of people so that shows me that we could continue (that form),” Williams said.

“(We are) going back to Barbados where we actually won after a long time. We are going back there for the same format which is a day/night game, so I expect wonderful things from the guys.” Williams said despite the persistent rain over the past few weeks, preparations were productive. “It was challenging but we got over that. We finished off a two-day game (recently) which was supposed to be four days under lights at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. It was a tremendous performance from the guys. In all, the preparation went quite well. There were constraints as I said, but we worked around that and I am quite pleased with how things went and I am looking forward to the guys continuing that performance that they have been showing.” Williams, who will count on a few experienced players such as captain Denesh Ramdin, is depending on a youthful but inexperienced batting line-up.

“In all the trial matches that we played, sides have been scoring 400 and 300 runs. We had some big scores...the batting has been clicking in the practice matches, but therefore it is up to the individuals to go out when it really matters and put runs on the board and I expect that they will do that for me.”

TT SQUAD: Denesh Ramdin (captain), Marlon Richards (vice-captain), Amir Jangoo, Jeremy Solozano, Isaiah Rajah, Ewart Nicholson, Tion Webster, Roshon Primus, Imran Khan, Daniel St Clair, Bryan Charles, Khary Pierre, Akeal Cooper .