Trinidad and Tobago women’s coach elated after victorious tour of Barbados

Karishma Ramharack
Karishma Ramharack

COACH of the Trinidad and Tobago women’s cricket team Kelvin Williams is elated that his team won all five of their matches on tour of Barbados, but said his unit cannot rest on their laurels and improvements can still be made.

TT defeated Barbados in three T20 matches and two 50-over matches in the one-week tour which ended on Wednesday.

TT started the tour with a four-wicket win in a T20 match on May 19.

In the first 50-over match on May 20, TT prevailed with a 44-run win and two days later won the second T20 contest by seven wickets.

On Monday, TT crushed the Barbadians by 89 runs in the second 50-over encounter and then ended the tour with a perfect record on Wednesday, completing an eight-wicket win in the third and final T20.

Barbados were without their two ace West Indies players in Deandra Dottin and Hayley Matthews.

Steffie Soogrim 

Williams said, “The tour was a good one for us. (It was) basically just to see where we are at. The regionals are just around the corner, so it is very important for us having this tour against Barbados.”

Speaking more about how the tour aided preparations for the 2022 Cricket West Indies Regional Women’s competition bowling off next month in Guyana, Williams said, “Winning against Barbados 5-0 of course you are going to get confidence. But of course, as I said, they had two players missing and when you get to the regionals those two players will be here. Can we have the same confidence going into a game against Barbados knowing that we just swept a series? Yes. We just got to take it one day at a time, one game at a time. But surely confidence moving forward is there.”

Despite the flawless record in Barbados, Williams said there a couple areas TT can improve on including reducing wide deliveries and being more clinical in the field.

“If we could minimise on that (wides) and if we could get that fielding up to 100 per cent (that will be great)," said the TT coach. "I think the fielding right now looking at 90 percent. We still have just a little bit of areas to work towards and be a perfect fielding side. Those are the two areas of concern.”

Dottin and Matthews had overseas commitments in other leagues and were not available.

Williams said, “I know Barbados was without Hayley and Dottin, but still they have some good players around…our plans were there, they executed the plans well and came out victorious.”

Williams highlighted a few players on the team that delivered on the tour including West Indies women’s player Karishma Ramharack.

“She adapted and adjusted quite well. She batted well, she bowled well and fielded excellently. If you could point a finger you point a finger straight towards Ramharack because of her outstanding performance.”

Williams said a couple of the inexperienced players stepped up to the plate also.

“We have some young ones (in) Steffie Soogrim…she was the pick of the bowlers for me and then Kamara Ragoobar again chipped in well.”

Despite naming players, Williams said it was a commendable team performance.

One of Soogrim’s best efforts came in the opening 50-over match as she snatched 5/36 with her left-arm spin and scored 36. In that same match, Ragoobar struck 31.

In the second 50-over contest, Ramharack had a brilliant match cracking 55 and later returning to grab 5/13 with her off-spin.

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