Port-of-Spain, Trinidad – Confidence is oozing in the Trinidad and Tobago camp ahead of their Caribbean T20 2013 opening match against Jamaica on Sunday. Skipper Denesh Ramdin and his team looked relaxed and comfortable in their training session on Saturday at Queen’s Park Oval.
Trinidad and Tobago skipper Dinesh Ramdin.
Tickets for Sunday’s match have been going very well and Ramdin called on his countrymen to come out and support the home side at the historic ground. First ball is 8 pm (7 pm Jamaica).
“It’s really great to hear that tickets are almost sold out for the first match. We can expect a full house when we take on Jamaica tomorrow. Playing at home is always great for us and we enjoy the feeling of being in front our supporters. This is the kind of occasion we dream of and we will look to get off to winning start tomorrow night (Sunday night). It will be a fantastic atmosphere,” the longstanding wicket-keeper said.
“The goal is to win the tournament again. We are trying to focus on our team. We have a fantastic bunch of players – some who won the World T20 for West Indies in Sri Lanka last year as well as have dominated T20 cricket all over the world.”
The Trinis have a balanced unit and are well marshalled by coach David Williams. The batting is headed by Kieron Pollard, last year’s MVP, and also includes Dwayne Bravo, who was Player-of-the-Match in last year’s final; his brother Darren; and openers Lendl Simmons and Williams Perkins.
The bowling is led by off-spinner Sunil Narine, who won the ICC Emerging Player-of-the-Year award last year; Samuel Badree, the clever slow bowler with the new ball; Shannon Gabriel, the strongly-built pacer; as well as the seam bowling of Rayad Emrit, Dwayne Bravo and Pollard.
Ramdin added: “We have won this tournament two years in a row and we want to win it again. As the defending champs we know everyone will be gunning for us, but we have our plans and will look to execute properly. We start against Jamaica and we have set out how we want to go against them. We will come at them hard. We will be focussing on what we have to do as a team to win and take it from there.
“Everyone has been really involved. We had one warm-up game against the Windwards to see where we’re at as a team and we managed to come away with a smart victory. In T20 you just need one guy to go out and play a big knock and win it for you …so I have to say everything is going well.”