Cricket West Indies Championship – Trinidad Guardian

Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force have set­tled com­fort­ably in An­tigua as they pur­sue their first First-Class ti­tle in two decades.

The team ar­rived in the Lee­ward Is­lands on Thurs­day ahead of the open­ing match of their three-game se­ries against the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes, in the 2026 Crick­et West In­dies Cham­pi­onship which bowls off to­mor­row at Coolidge.

Head coach Rayad Em­rit re­port­ed high morale with­in the camp, not­ing that the play­ers are in good con­di­tion and ready for the chal­lenge.

“Every­body is good and set­tling in well,” Em­rit said. “We had our first train­ing ses­sion this morn­ing, and it was a pro­duc­tive one. Every­one is fit, and we were able to have an ex­tend­ed ses­sion to­day, which went well. We’re look­ing for­ward to an­oth­er good ses­sion to­mor­row.”

The squad in­cludes Evin Lewis, who re­turns to the Red Force set­up for the first time since 2017. His re­call comes on the back of an im­pres­sive do­mes­tic sea­son, hav­ing scored over 600 runs for Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board Pre­mier Di­vi­sion One. Lewis al­so pro­duced three con­sec­u­tive cen­turies, in­clud­ing an un­beat­en 232 against Mer­ry­boys.

Em­rit al­so re­vealed that the pitch con­di­tions at Coolidge were not quite what the team had an­tic­i­pat­ed.

“We had a look at the pitch, and it’s not ex­act­ly what we ex­pect­ed,” he said. “We were hear­ing that it would be grassy and of­fer a lot of as­sis­tance to the seam­ers. In­stead, it looks a bit bare. They’ve put a lot of wa­ter in­to it, but it ap­pears it could be a good bat­ting sur­face.”

De­spite the un­ex­pect­ed na­ture of the pitch, the for­mer West In­dies all-rounder re­mains con­fi­dent in his bowl­ing at­tack, which fea­tures a bal­anced mix of pace and spin. The unit in­cludes West In­dies fast bowlers Jay­den Seales and An­der­son Philip, along with spin­ner Khary Pierre, an­oth­er West In­dies bowler.

“Hope­ful­ly, our bowlers can still get the job done if it stays like this. Over­all, it looks like a good pitch. The guys are set­tling in nice­ly, and every­one is fit and ready.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go will face the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes in a three-match se­ries un­der the tour­na­ment’s re­vamped for­mat.