Emrit hails Red Force’s four-day campaign despite final blip

TRINIDAD and Tobago Red Force flirted with top spot in the 2025 West Indies Four-Day Championship for most of the season, before eventually finishing in third place on 111 points when the competition concluded on April 12.

TT began the final round within touching distance of Guyana Harpy Eagles, but the latter team went on to clinch their eighth title in ten years after drawing their match with the Red Force at Queen’s Park Oval, St Clair. Guyana amassed 126.6 points to cop the title and the US$ 250,000 prize, with Barbados Pride (121.2 points) snatching second place and a US$ 100,000 prize.

With TT missing out on landing their first four-day title since the 2005/06 season, head coach Rayad Emrit, who was in his debut campaign, commended the efforts of his squad despite the blip at the end of the tournament. Emrit took charge of the team after the first-round clash against Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC), as former coach David Furlonge returned to Queen’s Park Cricket Club.

“All in all, it was a really good season. There’s always room for improvement. We’re very disappointed with how we finished and where we finished, but we only have ourselves to blame because we put ourselves in that position after the Jamaica game,” Emrit said, after his team’s draw with Guyana.

In the penultimate round versus the Jamaica Scorpions at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba, the Red Force did all their hard work a disservice as they were beaten by a whopping 223 runs in the day/night, pink-ball match. Jamaica eventually finished fifth after suffering a five-wicket loss to the CCC in the final round.

“We were unbeaten until the Jamaica game. The Jamaica game was a bit disappointing. We probably took them for granted for some periods,” Emrit said. “Coming into the last game, we were still in a good position to win the title, but playing the number one team in the competition and the advantage they had on the first day with the bowler-friendly conditions, I thought they used the conditions really well and put us on the back foot.”

Though TT’s batting let them down in crunch time against Jamaica and in their first innings against the Guyanese when they were bowled out for 240, Red Force still had the top two batsmen in the tourney, along with the leading wicket-taker. Jason Mohammed topped the batting charts with 679 runs, including four centuries, with skipper Joshua Da Silva scoring 583 runs which included three centuries. Meanwhile, left-arm spinner Khary Pierre took 41 wickets, including a career-best return of eight for 27 versus the Windward Islands Volcanoes in the second round.

“Overall, I thought our batsmen were really consistent throughout the tournament. Yes, we played on flat wickets but it’s good to see batsmen scoring centuries,” Emrit said.

TT opening batsman Cephas Cooper was also among the runs as he struck four fifties and a maiden First Class hundred which helped him to 452 runs at an average of 41.09.

NEW SPEEDSTERS WANTED

Among the things his team needs to work on, Emrit pointed to a need for greater fitness, a fresh cop of fast-bowling talent and better application by the middle-order against spin-bowling.

After the TT seam attack accounted for 16 wickets in their innings and a 56-run win away to Barbados in round five, Red Force were left light in the fast-bowling department as Jayden Seales and Anderson Phillip headed overseas to take up County Championship duties – missing the last two fixtures. Both Phillip and Seales played four games this season, taking ten and nine wickets respectively. Their departures paved the way for the return of 36-year-old Shannon Gabriel, who retired from West Indies duty last August.

Emrit defended the selection of Gabriel but admitted new pacers must be blooded. Merry Boys seamer Justin Manick featured in the first round versus CCC, but was unused for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, allrounder Joshua James took 16 wickets in seven matches in his debut First-Class season with TT.

“Obviously, there’s going to be a new crop of fast-bowlers coming through because Jayden and (Anderson) will be playing international cricket and Shannon Gabriel is probably on his way out and Terrance (Hinds) is playing a lot of white-ball cricket. We have to try and get replacements for these guys.” Emrit said.

The selection of Gabriel stirred up much discussion among cricket enthusiasts.

“It’s always up in the air when Shannon plays. We thought we would have needed the extra pace of Shannon in these (last) two games. We have Terrance Hinds and Joshua James who bowl medium-pace, so we needed that kind of X-Factor who could come and try to rough up batsmen.

“I think Shannon did well. Yes, we could probably use a youngster in the future, but I thought for these two games, I thought we needed the seniority and I thought Shannon was the best choice.”

Having improved on their fifth-placed finish from the 2024 season, Emrit will hope TT continue to make strides towards ending their regional four-day title drought.