As part of their preparations for the ongoing Nagico Regional Super50 tournament, the national cricket team took time off the field yesterday to participate in classroom sessions at their base at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain.With the psychological aspect of their game under scrutiny for the last few seasons the TTCB decided to put a programme in place for the team and yesterday former national youth captain Zaheer Ali and pastor Clive Dottin held sessions with the players.
Ali started the day with a one hour and 15 minutes presentation called 'Competence of the stars'. This session was very popular indeed as Ali, spoke about his experiences in playing cricket and being a member of the protective services in Trinidad and Tobago.The entire team led by skipper Dwayne Bravo attended the session at the conference room of the Hyatt and from all reports they were glued to the presentation.Among some of the topics discussed were effective communication, emotional competence, emotional intelligence, goal getting, motivational strategies, the importance of representing ones country, sportsmanship and spirit of game.
The players were given tips on how to marry technique with psychological aspect of the game, to make one complete product. After their session with Ali, the players were then taken under the wings of Dottin.Today, they return to the field for a practice session ahead of their opening game tomorrow against the Barbadians at 2.30 pm. T&T the most successful team in the history of regional one day cricket, will be aiming to win their 11th title. The team will be going into this tournament with a number of changes at the helm. Dwayne Bravo has replaced Denesh Ramdin as captain of the team, Kelvin Williams has taken over as coach from David Williams and Manohar Ramsaran has assumed the role of manager at the expense of Omar Khan.