Da Silva, Cephas Cooper drafted into Red F team for new regional T20 tourney

West Indies wicket-keeper/batsman Joshua Da Silva and in-form opener Cephas Cooper have been included in Trinidad and Tobago's picks to round off their 14-man squad for the Cricket West Indies' (CWI) new regional Twenty/20 tournament which is tentatively scheduled for April 25-May 9.

The draft for the tournament was held on February 24, with the TT team, which will be dubbed TT Legions, focusing on bolstering their pace attack to complete their squad after their seven initial protected picks were confirmed. The seven protected picks prior to the draft were Navin Bidaisee, Jyd Goolie, Caribbean Premier League (CPL) winner Mikkel Govia, Joshua James, Kamil Pooran, Crystian Thurton and wicket-keeper/batsman Amir Jangoo, who debuted for the Windies in a One-day international last December, before making his Test debut against Pakistan in January.

Cooper and Da Silva aside, the other players picked by TT in the draft to round off their team were Profilbau Victoria United allrounder Damion Joachim and seamers McKenny Clarke, Johann Layne, Shaaron Lewis and Abdul-Raheem Toppin. Clarke and Layne, who have had CPL exposure with St Lucia Kings and St Kitts and Nevis Patriots respectively, were TT's two overseas picks in the draft. Clarke, 21, is from St Lucia, and the 21-year-old Layne is from Barbados.

Lewis, a 26-year-old left-arm pacer, featured for Trinbago Knight Riders during the 2022 CPL season and incidentally got the wicket of Jangoo during a clash with the Jamaica Tallawahs in St Lucia.

Information out of the draft has not been forthcoming from CWI, but a TT official did confirm the list of players selected for TT. Key CWI officials were scheduled to convene a meeting concerning the tourney on February 27.

The tournament is scheduled to be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy (BLCA) in Tarouba, with CWI's five other territorial boards also being represented through Barbados Pelicans, Guyana Caimans, Jamaica Titans, Leeward Islands Thunder and Windward Islands Infernos.

Each team will have 14 players, all of whom must be under 30 by the end of the tournament. Teams were allowed to select three players between 27-29, with TT utilising those picks to select the trio of Goolie, 27, Pooran, 28, and Jangoo, 27.

Of the seven protected picks reserved for the various teams, one player must be a wrist-spinner. TT satisfied this criterion with the selection of 24-year-old leg-spinner Bidaisee. To qualify to participate in the tournament, prospective players must have fewer than ten T20 international caps and 40 "List A" T20s. Each team must draft a minimum of two overseas players.

Prior to the draft, TT Red Force coach Rayad Emrit mulled over the absence of seamers Jayden Seales and Anderson Phillip, who are set to honour English County Championship contracts which will overlap with the T20 tournament.

Emrit said the tourney was a step in the right direction.

"There obviously isn't any real T20 tournament that we can get the next crop of T20 players from or people from outside could see our younger talent," he said, on February 21.

"It's a good initiative from CWI and CPL. I just thought our players tend to develop a little older. Probably they could have extended the age group a bit more to 25-30 because as a region we definitely develop later than most countries."

TT squad for new regional T20 tourney:

Navin Bidaisee, McKenny Clarke, Cephas Cooper, Joshua Da Silva, Mikkel Govia, Jyd Goolie, Amir Jangoo, Joshua James, Damion Joachim, Johann Layne, Shaaron Lewis, Kamil Pooran, Abdul Raheem-Toppin, Crystian Thurton.