PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Trinidad & Tobago Red Force Head Coach David Furlonge is hoping the return of Darren Bravo and Akeal Hosein will give his team the boost they need to overtake Barbados Pride at the top of the regional four-day championships standings.
Red Force ended round two of the West Indies Championship on 38.6 points, behind table-toppers Pride with 42 points.
Furlonge said one of the objectives in the third round of the competition will be to “boost the batting and get the totals that we’re looking for”.
“Our target is to score 300-plus runs or if we can, get 350-plus runs. We believe we have the bowling to defend it but the top four or five batsmen haven’t been scoring runs. We hope that with Darren Bravo coming in that will sort of stabilize the top four there,” he said, adding that Hosein would also be an asset to the squad.
Red Force will also have full pace strength for their May 18-21 match against Leeward Islands Hurricanes with fast bowlers Jayden Seales and Shannon Gabriel back to full fitness. Pacers Anderson Phillip and Uthman Muhammad are also in the team.
Gabriel, who missed the second round of the championship in February due to injury, has been training with the Red Force and Furlonge said he was ready.
“He was working his way back to fitness this week and Monday was the first time he went 100 per cent – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week…. Actually, some of the senior players in our team have commented that Shannon’s pace is back so I think that will do well for the team, having a genuine fast bowler on top there,” Furlonge said.
“The last meeting that we had with the coaches, some of the coaches complained about the lack of grass on the wicket, so hopefully we have some grass on the wickets now and the wickets are hard due to the lack of rain and we get some quick wickets for him to bowl on.”
Furlonge said the team had no shortage of cricket to prepare for the resumption of the four-day championships.
In addition to players participating in club cricket and practice matches since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in the twin-island republic, he said: “We’ve been meeting regularly and discussing the next three rounds. We had a two-week camp with individuals working on their skills.”
The hosts will play Hurricanes in their round-three match at the Diego Martin Sporting Complex.
Furlonge said it was important to start off with a win to get the momentum going into the May 25 match against Barbados in round four.
In the first two rounds of the five-round tournament, Red Force defeated the Windward Islands Volcanoes and Jamaica Scorpions before a break was taken to for the West Indies Apex Test Series.
Trinidad & Tobago Red Force Full Squad: Imran Khan (Captain), Jason Mohammed, Jeremy Solozano, Isaiah Rajah, Khary Pierre, Shannon Gabriel, Darren Bravo, Jayden Seales, Bryan Charles, Yannic Cariah, Akeal Hosein, Uthman Muhammad, Anderson Phillip, Keagan Simmons, Joshua Da Silva.
