Vin­ode Mam­chan

Na­tion­al head coach Gus Lo­gie will con­tin­ue in his role as head coach for the up­com­ing Re­gion­al Su­per50 tour­na­ment de­spite the T&T Red Force's poor show­ing in the Dig­i­cel Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League (PCL).

At the end of the pre-christ­mas phase of the se­ries, the T&T Red Force are at the bot­tom of the six-team ta­ble.

The team start­ed off the cam­paign with an out­right vic­to­ry against the Wind­ward Hur­ri­canes but since then things have gone down­hill and Lo­gie has come un­der scruti­ny by the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB).

The ex­ec­u­tive of the TTCB head­ed by Az­im Bas­sarath met with Lo­gie and the se­lec­tors last Thurs­day and, ac­cord­ing to third vice-pres­i­dent of the board, Patrick Ram­per­sad, it was very fruit­ful in­deed. Ram­per­sad said: "We had an ex­cel­lent, open and frank dis­cus­sion with Gus and the na­tion­al se­lec­tors. At no point in time was the tenure of the coach dis­cussed, as every­one present was more in­ter­est­ed in find­ing ways for a pos­i­tive out­come."

The en­tire ex­ec­u­tive of the TTCB was present for the meet­ing in Cou­va and they were joined by Lo­gie, chair­man of se­lec­tors Raph­ick Ju­madeen, for­mer Test fast bowler An­tho­ny Gray, Lal­man Kow­lessar and Roland Sam­path, who is al­so man­ag­er of the team.

Ram­per­sad added, "Gus took full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the per­for­mance of the team and ad­mit­ted that the prepa­ra­tion for the tour­na­ment was quite ad­e­quate. He could not put his fin­ger on the prob­lem, but I am of the view from our dis­cus­sions that the prob­lem may be a men­tal one with our play­ers. Gus may have to go back to his tech­ni­cal peo­ple and come up with a pro­pos­al for the TTCB to get as­sis­tance for the play­ers in this re­gard. We at the TTCB are very con­fi­dent that the per­for­mances of this team will im­prove as we move for­ward. We all agreed that col­lab­o­ra­tion and dis­cus­sion is the way for­ward and the ex­ec­u­tive has vowed to con­tin­ue to give tremen­dous sup­port to the coach and man­age­ment team in this re­gard."

Lo­gie's tenure as head coach comes to an end af­ter the PCL in March, and he will be look­ing for a much im­proved per­for­mance from his play­ers when the tour­na­ment re­sumes in March. His first pri­or­i­ty now is the Re­gion­al Su­per50 which be­gins at the end of the month and the T&T Red Force will be de­fend­ing its ti­tle.