The players from the two teams will be the pioneers in the new venture by the West Indies Cricket Board to play first-class matches under lights. The match will be played at the Sir Vivian Richards Ground, seven kilometres east of the capital St John’s, and starts at 1 pm.
Both teams arrived in Antigua on Tuesday and have had net sessions using the pink balls. The Trinidadians came from Jamaica, where they suffered a heavy defeat in the opening round against Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC), while the Guyanese travelled from home, after having a bye in the first round.
There is great expectation in both camps. Colin Borde, the Trinidad and Tobago manager said his players were excited to be part of history but winning the game and getting some points in the bag was more important.
They failed to score more than 150 in either innings and lost by 151 runs but have kept the same 13 players from the first match.
“We played poorly against CCC and we lost that match but at the same time CCC played some good cricket and they deserved to win,” Borde told CMC Sports.
“We know we have to play better if we want to win the tournament. We made some mistakes in the first match and I don’t think we will make those kind of mistakes again.”
Speaking during the team’s evening training session he added: “We are quite comfortable and quite happy with the pink ball and the players are looking forward to the match and being part of history. So far we had sessions with the pink ball and it has held up quite well.”
Guyana coach Rabindranauth Seeram was busy yesterday morning in the nets as he tried to get his young team focussed on the challenge in their first outing. They are without Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shiv Chanderpaul, leaving a large hole in the middle order.
The coach, however, outlined that the preparations had been excellent and said his team was ready for the challenge.
“Our preparation has been very good. With the bye in the first round we had an extra week to get ready for the season,” the former Guyana batsman said.
“We had a full month of preparation and we had some sunshine and good pitches to play on. The players are ready to go and we are all feeling quite ready for this match.
“We have some young players in the team who are happy to get the opportunity. The pink ball will be something new to us, it’s new to everyone. When we had our night session, it did not do a lot early on but started to swing later, so we will take that into consideration when we do our planning.”
The pitch is expected to be a typical Antiguan surface – offering some assistance in the early stages, but likely to be flat for most of the match. The other area the two teams will have to monitor closely is the dew factor, with the final session being played from 6 pm to 8 pm.
TEAMS (from):GUYANA – Sewnarine Chattergoon (captain), Assad Fudadin, Travis Dowlin, Narsingh Deonarine, Vishaul Singh, Ravendra Chandrika, Esuan Crandon, Royston Crandon, Derwin Christrian, Brandon Bess, Trevon Benn, Davendra Bishoo, Veerasammy Permaul
T&T – Daren Ganga (captain), Justin Guillien, Dave Mohammed, Lendl Simmons, Jason Mohammes, Ravi Rampaul, Denesh Ramdin, Imran Khan, Sherwin Ganga, Sunil Narine, Rayad Emrit, Richard Kelly, Amit Jaggernauth
Umpires: Clancy Mack, Wycliffe Mitchum.
