KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Both Windward Islands and Trinidad & Tobago hope to put their stumbles in their previous matches behind them in their 11th round match of the WICB regional four-day competition, starting today at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex.
Windwards are second on 60 points and have big dreams of a maiden title, but they suffered a major setback, when the Combined Campuses & Colleges beat them by 155 runs last weekend.
T&T, a side that many expected to have seriously challenged for the title, find themselves in the bottom half of the table in fifth on 45 points, and had last weekend off to try to discover how they can recover from a 124-run defeat to leaders Jamaica.
When the two sides met in the first leg of the competition in the third round, T&T crushed Windwards by 166 runs at Guaracara Park.
The Windwards have made three changes to their squad to boost their batting in particular ahead of the key match.
Opening batsman Salvan Browne has replaced Keddy Lesporis, Andre Fletcher has taken the place of Camilus Alexander, and Ray Casimir has come in for Mervin Matthew.
For T&T, former Young West Indies batsman Jason Mohammed and newcomer Daron Cruickshank have come into the visitors’ side to replace Kieron Pollard, who is in the West Indies team for the first two One-day Internationals against England at the Guyana National Stadium, and out-of-favour William Perkins.
Experienced left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed has again been left out of the T&T squad which leaves the main spin bowling duties to be shared between Amit Jaggernauth and Magnum Nanan with support from Sherwin Ganga.
Squads:
WINDWARD ISLANDS: Rawl Lewis (captain), Alston Bobb, Salvon Browne, Deighton Butler, Ray Casimir, Johnson Charles, Andre Fletcher, Donwell Hector, Kevin James, Lyndon James, Nelon Pascal, Kenroy Peters, Shane Shillingford
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: Daren Ganga (captain), Atiba Alert, Adrian Barath, Darren Bravo, Daron Cruickshank, Sherwin Ganga, Amit Jaggernauth, Imran Khan, Gibran Mohammed, Jason Mohammed, Magnum Nanan, Ravi Rampaul, Navin Stewart.
