A youth­ful T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) North-South Clas­sic is set to bowl off at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) on Thurs­day af­ter­noon in a day-night en­counter.

With both wick­et-keep­ers Joshua Da Sil­va and Amir Jan­goo in Pak­istan on West In­dies du­ty, An­to­nio Gomez (North) and Daniel Williams (South) will be com­pet­ing for the gloves of the Red Force and will make cer­tain the North-South Clas­sic will af­ford them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­press the se­lec­tors, led by for­mer wick­et-keep­er Gibran Mo­hammed.

They are among young faces named in the two 14-man squads.

School­boys and na­tion­al Un­der-17 play­ers Fa­reez Ali and Aa­di­an Rachan are hop­ing to make use of the va­cant fast bowl­ing po­si­tions cre­at­ed with the ab­sence of Jay­den Seales and An­der­son Phillip who are al­so in Pak­istan in ad­di­tion to Shaaron Lewis’ in­jury.

With the BLCA hav­ing a rep­u­ta­tion of as­sist­ing pace bowlers, it will be in­ter­est­ing to see if both play­ers com­pete along­side Justin Man­ick who has one First Class match un­der his belt.

For North, na­tion­al youth fast bowler Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin was named along­side his na­tion­al U-20 cap­tain, Joshua Davis, who with for­mer youth team­mate An­drew Ram­baran can tus­sle for the va­cant spin­ning spots left by Yan­nic Cari­ah and Bryan Charles who are both in the Crick­et West In­dies spin bowl­ing camp.

Khary Pierre (North) and Jyd Goolie (South) will lead the re­spec­tive teams and both ad­dressed the launch held at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, on Mon­day, ex­press­ing their con­fi­dence of be­ing vic­to­ri­ous.

Pierre said, “It brings me great pride and joy be­ing a part of this (North-South match) now. I would like this game to be com­pet­i­tive. North has got the bet­ter of South for the last two games and has been very com­pet­i­tive, we want to keep it this way."

Goolie re­spond­ed, “It’s a priv­i­lege to be cap­tain of the South team and to al­so be part of this North-South Clas­sic. As Khary (Pierre) said, the last two years we (South) have been de­feat­ed and we’re hop­ing to change that this year."

Pak­istan com­ing to T&T

Mean­while, al­so at the launch of Clas­sic, pres­i­dent of the TTCB, Az­im Bas­sarath an­nounced some of the match­es lo­cal crick­et fans can look for­ward to in 2025, with West In­dies ver­sus Pak­istan match­es be­ing the high­light of the fix­tures.

Pak­istan and West In­dies will en­gage in three One Day In­ter­na­tion­als in Ju­ly/ Au­gust as the 1992 World Cup Cham­pi­ons will vis­it the Caribbean for three ODIs and three T20s.

The T&T Red Force’s first match of the Crick­et West In­dies Four Day Cham­pi­onship will be at the BLCA be­gin­ning on Jan­u­ary 29 in a day/night af­fair.

Bas­sarath hint­ed at a busy first two months, “the age group In­ter­zone tour­na­ments bet in­to top gear with the U-15s tak­ing the field from Jan­u­ary 29."

The ex­pand­ed Pre­mier­ship sea­son will get un­der­way in the first week of Feb­ru­ary.

"The ob­jec­tive is to help the top crick­eters de­vel­op dis­ci­pline, men­tal tough­ness, phys­i­cal strength and sta­mi­na re­quired to pro­duce their best over the four-day chal­lenge at the re­gion­al lev­el," Bas­sarath said re­gard­ing the Pre­mier­ship sea­son.

The Sun­day League or 50-Overs League will be­gin on April 26 and be com­plet­ed on May 10, while the T20 Fes­ti­val will bowl off from March 6.

Teams

North:Khary Pierre (cap­tain), Tion Web­ster, Vikash Mo­han, Isa­iah Ra­jah, De­journ Charles, An­drew Ram­baran, Joshua James, An­to­nio Gomez, Mikkel Govia, Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin, Dex­ter Sween, Philton Williams, Jor­dan Warn­er, Joshua Davis.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Rayad Em­rit (coach); Frank Sim­mons (man­ag­er), Lendl Sim­mons (men­tor).

South: Jyd Goolie (cap­tain), Cephas Coop­er, Mbe­ki Joseph, Sha­trughan Ram­baran, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Mark Deyal, Daniel Williams, Kamil Pooran, Fa­reez Ali, Aa­di­an Racha, Justin Man­ick, Crys­t­ian Thur­ton, Justyn Gan­goo, Sameer Ali.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Im­ran Khan (coach), Ra­jen­dra Man­galee (man­ag­er), De­nesh Ramdin (men­tor).