Vin­ode Mam­chan

When the na­tion­al crick­eters got up last Sun­day morn­ing at the Blue Hori­zon Ho­tel in Bar­ba­dos, they had a big task on their hands in the evening and want­ed to make sure every­thing went right. Af­ter hav­ing their break­fast around mid-morn­ing, they had enough of the food at the ho­tel. They want­ed home made food and cur­ry chick­en, dhal and rice in par­tic­u­lar. Even­tu­al man of the match in the fi­nals Dwayne Bra­vo rushed across to Sher­ry Khan, the wife of man­ag­er Omar Khan and asked her to rus­tle up the pop­u­lar Tri­ni dish. She oblig­ed and went off to the su­per­mar­ket in search of the in­gre­di­ents to make the re­quest­ed lunch. Soon af­ter she was back and some of the oth­er wives who vis­it­ed to look at the fi­nals, chipped in and not be­fore long the play­ers had cur­ry chick­en, dhal and rice for lunch.

This would have set­tled them nice­ly, as they went out and gave a most com­pre­hen­sive dis­play in dis­patch­ing the Ja­maicans in the fi­nals to re­peat as re­gion­al cham­pi­ons. Speak­ing af­ter the win Bra­vo said: "It was re­al­ly nice to have home food be­fore the fi­nals. I eat two plates of food and it was per­fect. I would like to thank Sher­ry for the kind ges­ture." This was just a taste of what re­al­ly goes on with this team. They have been knit­ted very tight­ly to­geth­er by the man­age­ment of the team led by Omar Khan. This was one of the ma­jor plus­es they had over the oth­er teams in the tour­na­ment.

Af­ter the fi­nals Ja­maican play­ers An­dre Rus­sell and Shawn Find­lay came out and re­marked that there was dis-uni­ty in their team and they ad­mired the team spir­it shown by the T&T team. Af­ter the team won the ti­tle, they milled around a bit with mem­bers of the T&T posse who were in the par­ty stand. They went there to meet their fans and of course to give au­to­graphs and just to share in the cel­e­bra­tion. Af­ter this, it was down to St Lawrence Gap, where the ma­jor­i­ty of the play­ers came out to have a good time. Dwayne Bra­vo en­tered the McBride's Pub danc­ing and went straight to the mi­ni-stage do­ing his thing. Ke­iron Pol­lard fol­lowed in the same style, as did Kevon Coop­er. Skip­per De­nesh Ramdin was al­so present, tak­ing care of his play­ers and mak­ing sure they were hav­ing a good time. When Dar­ren Bra­vo en­tered the own­er made an an­nounce­ment, con­grat­u­lat­ing the T&T team and al­so gave them a bot­tle of cham­pagne to aid in the cel­e­bra­tions. By this time the play­ers were joined by many fans and T&T took over McBride's that night. Some play­ers from the Ja­maican team as well as the Bar­ba­di­an team were al­so in the par­ty and joined in the fun with the T&T boys. Fast bowler Fi­del Ed­wards, when asked by a sup­port­er why he was so fast and mean against T&T in the se­mi-fi­nals, replied: "Don't take it on man, I am half Tri­ni yuh know."It was all part of the fun for the play­ers and their lucky fans, as T&T paint­ed Bar­ba­dos red.