Busta Cup: T&T ready for Windwards (22 January 1999)

22 January 1999

West Indies: T&T ready for Windwards

By Garth Wattley

The opposition looks easy, the terrain familiar and the troops are primed and ready. But Trinidad and Tobago cricket captain Ian Bishop is not about to be taken in by mere appearances. Instead, when play gets going this morning in the rescheduled Busta Cup fixture against the Windward Islands at the Queen's park Oval, T&T will be striving to keep their focus.

"It is not a situation where we are going to rest on whatever we have done before," Bishop said yesterday.

"It's a new game, it's a new team; I think it will be a stronger bowling attack, so we have to prepare for that."

The Windwards, regular carriers of the wooden spoon in regional cricket, have made the eleventh hour trip to Trinidad burdened by an innings and 236-run thumping by Barbados.

But the Dawnley Joseph-led team may find that conditions are not entirely unfavourable, especially for their pacers.

"The Windwards has one of the strongest seam attacks in the Caribbean," Bishop noted.

"We will have to see how we can battle against (Cameron) Cuffy, (McNeil) Morgan, Caspar Davis. It is not a poor attack by any means." A cut Oval outfield, kept lush green by the almost daily showers, will again be slow, although perhaps not quite as slow as the ground which produced 458 runs in four innings in the North/South Classic two weeks ago. The pitch itself also looks similar to the Classic surface.

And if looks are not deceiving, batsman will have to come loaded with patience to be productive. Home knowledge should be invaluable to the local team here.

"You're not going to get full value for runs," Bishop observed. "But we went through the North/South game. We should be ideally prepared for what is to come in this game."

Current form will also boost confidence. The innings victory over Guyana saw pacer Marlon Black grabbing eight wickets, middle-order batsman Dennis Rampersad scoring his maiden regional 50 and opener Leon Romero, averaging two-and-a-half hours at the crease over his last three innings, batting with the kind of application required of good openers.

Romero and Balliram will again form the opening pair with Suruj Ragoonath still sidelined with a hairline fracture of a finger. But T&T will wait until this morning to decide whether a third seamer-enthusiastic Asif Jan-will be needed.

"The objective is to fulfill our potential individually and collectively," the captain said.

"We've got confidence coming out of the Guyana game that we are starting to play somewhere near to where we want to. But there is still a lot of room for improvement."

Trinidad and Tobago - Ian Bishop (Capt), Anil Balliram, Leon Romero, Dennis Rampersad, Richard Smith, Lincoln Roberts, Phil Simmons, David Williams, Marlon Black, Asif Jan, Mukesh Persad, Avidesh Samaroo and Vishal Persad-Maharaj.

Windward Islands - Dawnley Joseph (Capt), Joseph Parillon, Devon Smith, Reynold McLean, Balty Watt, Roy Marshall, Vernon Dumas, Wayne Phillip, Hezron Lawrence, McNeil Morgan, Dennison Thomas, Casper Davis and Cameron Cuffy.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)