ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – This year’s West Indies Cricket Board Professional Cricket League Regional 4-Day Tournament opens this coming Friday.
One of the rivalries that will be closely followed brings together old foes Trinidad & Tobago Red Force and Barbados at Queen’s Park Oval in the T&T capital of Port of Spain.
The two teams were truly last season’s top two sides – Barbados lifted the NAGICO Super50 title and followed up with the Regional 4-Day crown, while T&T finished in the runners-up spot in both competitions.
It will be the 58th time, the two sides will be meeting in the modern West Indies first-class championship (1966 onwards) – and 29th time T&T will play hosts to this rivalry.
WICB Media presents quick quotes from head coaches Hendy Springer of Barbados and Gus Logie of T&T.
HENDY SPRINGER
On playing to maintain the top spot in the Regional 4-Day:
We do not only want to remain on top, but we also want to see these young men improve. It’s all fine and dandy to win trophies, but I think the real achievement will be to continue winning trophies while seeing improvement in the players.
On how he plans to approach staying at the top:
It’s a work always in progress. In between matches, you always have to be planning and reviewing. You have to build-up to each match with training sessions, and then it’s down to planning and execution for each opponent. We have done it pretty well over the past couple of seasons and we want to continue doing the things that have worked for us and brought us success.
On how does he plan to maintain intensity throughout the long season:
It will be a challenge to try and make everything that we do very interesting and enjoyable. It’s already been a long year for many of the players in our squad. They have been playing non-stop over the last six to eight months from the past regional season into international cricket and the Caribbean Premier League for the Barbados Tridents, as well as the A-Team and Champions League Twenty20 – and not forgetting that some of them have just finished the club season here. Whatever we do as a management team must be interesting and enjoyable, and emphasise to the guys that they must maintain a certain level of fitness. We have just one home match before Christmas and many of the players enjoy going on the road and playing away from home, but we will have to hit the ground running when we arrive in Trinidad. It’s unfortunate that our practice matches were affected by the rain, but we had some very, very intense training sessions.
On the home-and-away format:
The length of the season and the breaks in between will be a test for the players to see if they can maintain focus and momentum – but I like this format. If you aspire to play at the highest level, five or six matches a season is inadequate to prepare you.
On players he wants to see make a big leap in the coming season:
I want to see Shai Hope, Shane Dowrich and Miguel Cummins become more consistent performers for us. Others like Kraigg Brathwaite, Kirk Edwards, Carlos Brathwaite, Ashley Nurse and Jonathan Carter have been part of either the West Indies senior or A-Team squads, so we want to see them continue pushing their claims. This is a stepping-stone to international cricket and I am hoping that some of the players in the team play well enough to be considered for honours above this level. We have a few of our senior players available and so this will also help us in our first few matches.
GUS LOGIE
On being the runners-up last season:
No doubt, we want to take it a step further and go all the way this time. We have spoken about the objective of winning the Regional 4-Day Tournament and the NAGICO Super 50 Tournament. We have a mix of youth and experience, but we see the coming season as a challenge and to establish ourselves as a force in the four-day format in particular – and this new season and format gives us the perfect opportunity to do so.
On lack of consistency in four-day competition:
Our batting has not consistently scored runs – particularly the kind of big individual scores and totals that put you in a position to win four-day matches. It’s an area that we have tried to work very hard correcting and so we are really looking forward to the players really going out and batting for long periods and accumulating the big scores and totals that would allow our bowlers the opportunity to put pressure on the opposition.
On Ramnaresh Sarwan being included in the squad:
We had a number of young and exciting players, but we needed a player that could bring a lot more stability and experience in the middle order, so that’s why we chose Ramnaresh. We are looking forward to him bringing not just runs, but his experience that he will mentor our younger players, so that they can learn from him.
On how does he plan to maintain intensity throughout the long season:
We have been training for the last few months – three days a week, plus training matches on the weekends. The players are all keen to go there and do what they have learnt over the last few months. The enthusiasm is there. We will have to work hard on fitness and schedule appropriate periods of rest and relaxation. We have some team building exercises planned for when there is a down period and we will try to make sure that they are fresh for every match that comes along.
On players to watch:
It’s a long season and opportunities will come for many of the players, but we believe Evin Lewis is one of the players that we believe has the potential to go all the way and we would like to see his transformation from the limited-overs version to the longer version; Nicholas Pooran is not in the squad for this weekend’s opener, but he will be given an opportunity later on; Yannick Ottley has the ability to establish himself as a decent all-round player; and Akeal Hosein was good last season and we want to see his progress this coming season.