Uncertainty over Bravo’s return to Red Force

Uncertainty over Bravo’s return to Red Force
By JOEL BAILEY Thursday, February 25 2016



THERE IS uncertainty over whether West Indies batsman Darren Bravo will return to the Trinidad and Tobago Red Force team for tomorrow’s Regional Four-Day Championship Round Eight clash against the Leeward Islands Hurricanes, at the National Cricket Centre, Couva.

Bravo stated his intention to skip the ICC T20 World Cup in India to concentrate on the First Class circuit and is expected to make his 2015-2016 Regional First Class entry this weekend.

However, according to Red Force coach Gus Logie, “at this point in time, he is in a selected 14.

We will be monitoring his progress because we understood he has a slight injury.

“We will be looking at him (today),” Logie added. “He’ll have training with us and, at the end of the day, he’ll let us know exactly how he feels.” About the injury, Logie disclosed, “he was hit in a net session in the head so he’s still a little bit dizzy. He will make himself available to train and we’ll assess it from there.” The TT team has been inconsistent in the Four-Day season but they registered a convincing eight-wicket win away to the Jamaica Scorpions on Monday, at Sabina Park, Kingston.

“Like everything else, once we win everyone will be in good spirits,” said Logie, the former TT captain and West Indies vice-captain.

“We need to maintain that. We arrived (home on Tuesday) night.

We practice (this) morning at the Cricket Centre.

“I hope everybody will come out and go through their paces as expected, and be mentally and physically ready for the challenge on Friday.” Two players who impressed in Jamaica were opening batsman Evin Lewis and off-spinner Jon-Russ Jagessar. Lewis had scores of 87 and 104 while Jagessar, in only his second First Class game, snapped up 11 wickets in the encounter.

“With Evin it has been a natural progression with him,” said Logie. “We’re seeing the maturity in Evin’s batting and he’s taking in a lot more responsibility, which is something that augurs well for him and the team. And we hope it continues.

“For Jagessar, as a young man in terms of his cricketing pedigree at the national level, it’s phenomenal.

We hope that he continues to work as hard as he has been working and, as focused as he is, we hope it continues in the remaining games.” West Indies Under-19 ace fast bowler Alzarri Joseph will make his return to the Hurricanes team for this weekend’s contest.

Logie noted, “he starting this season against us (he took one wicket in their First Round meeting) and he did reasonably well before the World Cup. We are aware of his increasing prowess at the youth level.” The ex-Windies coach continued, “we trust that our players are aware of it as well, and we’ll just take it one step at a time. He’s a young man, coming off of a successful tour and his confidence will be high. I’ll like to think that our players’ confidence is high as well.”

Red Force squad: Jason Mohammed (captain), Darren Bravo, Yannic Cariah, Narsingh Deonarine, Rayad Emrit, Kyle Hope, Akeal Hosein, Jon-Russ Jagessar, Steven Katwaroo, Imran Khan, Evin Lewis, Yannick Ottley, Marlon Richards, Jeremy Solozano.