Coach Furlonge leaves Red Force for Queen's Park Cricket Club

THE Trinidad and Tobago Red Force team will have a new coach at the helm when they tackle Windward Islands Volcanoes in their second game of the 2025 West Indies Four-day Championship from February 5-8, after David Furlonge resigned from the Red Force coaching post to return to Queen’s Park Cricket Club.
Red Force got an emphatic innings and 75-run win over the Combined Campuses and Colleges in their opening game of the regional four-day campaign last week. It turned out to be Furlonge’s last game in charge, with former Red Force allrounder Rayad Emrit ascending from his assistant coach post to take over the team.
Furlonge’s contract with the Red Force was due to end in May. He told Newsday that a position opened up at QPCC, and it was one he wasn’t willing to pass up on.
Furlonge has now been appointed on a two-year contract with the Parkites, and will have a dual role as the cricket manager and the team’s head coach. Furlonge likened the managerial role to a technical director’s role within a football team, and is driven to help take the young QPCC players to the next level as they look to break into the Red Force and West Indies setups.
Furlonge also said he has no intentions of re-applying for the Red Force post.
On January 14, in a chat with Newsday, Furlonge shut down rumours of his potential exit from the Red Force team.
Appointed Red Force coach in December 2020, Furlonge led the team to regional 50-over titles in 2021 and 2023.
When asked if he achieved what he had set out to accomplish with the Red Force team, Furlonge said, “It’s kinda half and half. We won two 50-over titles, but I wish we could have won a four-day title as well.”
Furlonge said his decision to step down came as a surprise to TT Cricket Board (TTCB) president Azim Bassarath, with Emrit also saying the news came as a shock to him.
However, Furlonge believes the foundation for success has been laid for the Red Force and has full in confidence in Emrit to pick up where he left off.
While the team is still to deliver a four-day title since the 2006 season, Furlonge pointed to the progress of players such as Yannic Cariah, Joshua Da Silva, Amir Jangoo, Kjorn Ottley, Anderson Phillip and Jayden Seales as evidence of the positive work done during his tenure.
“I think the team’s in good hands. I saw how the guys were with Rayad and I think the players are hungry to do well.”
Furlonge said the team’s preparations ahead of the season will give them a good chance of breaking the country’s 19-year drought in the four-day arena.
Four-day success imperative
Speaking to Newsday ahead of the team’s clash with the Windwards in St Vincent, Emrit said clinching the four-day title is the team’s ultimate goal and believes they have struck the right balance with experience and youth this season.
“It’s something that was one of my goals when I started coaching – to be the head coach of the Red Force team. I think it came sooner than I expected.
"Obviously, coach Furlonge has done an excellent job with the team over the last four-five years,” Emrit said.
“My main focus is trying to get the team to do the right things consistently to try for us to win this four-day title.
"We have a very talented bunch of guys. We still need to develop the right habits, especially in red-ball cricket. I think we’re very good in white-ball cricket, but we need to improve in our red-ball game as well.”
With his own contract with the Red Force wrapping up at the end of May, Emrit said there will be some pressure on his shoulders to deliver a level of success straight off the bat.
“That might inspire the (TTCB) to give me a long-term contract. But my goal here is to try and make better players for TT and the West Indies by extension. Obviously, most coaches are judged by their team’s performances. Everybody wants results.”
Emrit said the TTCB understands where he wants to take the team and the type of cricket he wants to play and the aim is to have everyone in the setup buy into his plans.
With the quartet of Jangoo, Phillip, Seales and captain Da Silva returning to the TT team, the new head coach expects those players to let their recent international exposure speak volumes.
“They work very hard and that’s the most important thing, bringing that work ethic back into the team – showing the younger guys what it takes to get to that level. And if everybody could buy into that and the younger guys can work with the senior guys, it makes my job as head coach a lot easier as well.”
The match against Windwards will be TT’s second consecutive day/night contest.
TT squad to face Windwards:
Yannic Cariah, Bryan Charles, Cephas Cooper, Joshua Da Silva, Jyd Goolie, Joshua James, Amir Jangoo, Jason Mohammed, Vikash Mohan, Anderson Phillip, Khary Pierre, Jayden Seales, Tion Webster.
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"Coach Furlonge leaves Red Force for Queen’s Park Cricket Club"