TTCB – News

Premiership Cricket: MerryBoys aiming to beat Connection
January 29, 2010

CERAMIC MerryBoys will be aiming to continue their winning start to the season when they take on W Connection Wanderers today in the second round of the Eastern Credit Union National League Premiership Division at St Mary’s College Ground , Serpentine Road, St James.

The Diego Martin based club was the only team to secure an outright victory in the opening round of matches crushing Alescon Comets by seven wickets.

They are favourites to claim full points against Wanderers, further weakened by the loss of captain William Perkins who has been recalled to the national team. MerryBoys’ opening batsman, Mario Belcon said yesterday that his team is quietly confident of beating Wanderers.

“We have been training hard this season for the tournament and we have made some good additions to an already talented team. The league has eluded us for some years but we have been consistently winning limited overs tournaments and we would like to win the league in 2010," said Belcon.

“With or without Perkins we have a team capable with Wanderers. We have done it in the past on numerous occasions and we have the attack to subdue them,” the dashing batsman said.

The match will have added spice with Merry Boys pacer Atiba Allert playing against his former club for the first time.

Defending champions PowerGen will have a tough match at home to Queen’s Park at Syne Village in Penal. The PowerGen lineup has been further weakened with wicketkeeper Gibran Mohammed drafted into the national team for the current West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Four-Day match against the Leeward Island in Barbados.

This has increased the burden on skipper Samuel Badree and youngster such as Varoon Samaroo and Nicholas Sookdeosingh. The Parkites batsmen have been in good form with newcomer Nicholas Alexis scoring his first century with allrounder Akiel Hosein and Uthman Mohammed batting solidly.

First Citizens Clarke Road will host Tile Depot Central Sports at the Wilson Road Recreational Ground in Penal. Lead by Gregory Mahabir, Clarke Road start as favourites against the Central based team. They have added Sanjiv Gooljar to an already talented team which boasts an impressive batting lineup which includes Hoomchan Pooran, Varendra Maharaj and Sean Siloch.

Clico Preysal will be hoping to overcome their slow start to the season when they host the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) at the Inshan Ali Recreational Ground in Preysal.

Another stumble by Preysal to capitalise on a weaker team in the league would leave them with a difficult task of winning the league. Captain Nicholas Ramjass has a talented squad which has the potential to easily defeat UTT.

Alescon Comet will face tricky Ramahmut’s Evergreen as they try to rebound from their opening round loss at Pluck Road.

Spinners Kissondath Magram and Magnum Nanan will be crucial to Comets’ chances of victory. However, the batting lineup lead by former Trinidad and Tobago player Suruj Ragoonath has been struggling.

Evergreen will be confident of claiming and unlikely win after taking first innings honours from Preysal in the previous round.