T&T's se­nior net­ballers leave ear­ly this morn­ing (Wednes­day) for their se­ries against Ja­maica with­out ace shoot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace.

The goal-shoot­er, who re­cent­ly re­turned from a hec­tic but suc­cess­ful sea­son with the New South Wales Swifts in the Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball (SSN) League in Aus­tralia, will not take part in the three-match se­ries ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent of T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA), Sher­ry-Ann Black­burn, on Tues­day.

Black­burn said, "Com­ing out of the se­ries (SSN) and not hav­ing played for a bit, Sam opt­ed out be­cause of a con­cern for an in­jury that might be ex­as­per­at­ed if ex­posed to in­tense play at the mo­ment. So it was best that she sit out this tour to ful­ly re­cov­er to go for­ward stronger."

The "Ca­lyp­so Girls" were to be co-cap­tained by the reign­ing Swifts "Most Valu­able Play­er" along with fel­low in­ter­na­tion­al goal-at­tack spe­cial­ist Kali­fa Mc­Collin, who had her de­but sea­son with the Colling­wood Mag­pies in the SSN, but the lat­ter will lead the team sole­ly with the sup­port of new­ly in­stalled vice-cap­tain, vet­er­an de­fend­er Crys­tal-Ann George.

They will take in­struc­tions from head coach Althea Mc­Collin, who was some­what dis­ap­point­ed that she will not have the ser­vices of star play­er Wal­lace against the "Sun­shine Girls" and a Ja­maican men's team, who re­placed South Africa af­ter the world's fifth-ranked team pulled out last week due to the rise in COVID-19 cas­es in Ja­maica.

"It's a bit dis­heart­en­ing," said coach Mc­Collin. "The sit­u­a­tion in it­self, how­ev­er, it leaves room for op­por­tu­ni­ty for an­oth­er young bud­ding play­er to come through. Sam will be with us, sup­port­ing from home and will al­ways be a part of this unit."

The Mar­garet Beck­ford Se­ries, which is sched­uled to start Sat­ur­day to Oc­to­ber 21 will see world 10th-ranked T&T take on the world's fourth-ranked "Sun­shine Girls" in a three-match se­ries and a Ja­maican men’s team, who was in­clud­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the with­draw­al of the "Pro­teas" in the Tri-Na­tion Se­ries.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Net­ball Ja­maica pres­i­dent Tri­cia Robin­son, the men’s team will play on­ly two match­es in the se­ries, one each against the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" and the Con­nie Fran­cis-coached "Sun­shine Girls" and won’t be chal­leng­ing or in­volved with the se­ries be­tween the top ri­val Caribbean teams.

The lo­cal team, which al­so in­cludes Jameela Mc­Carthy who last week signed a pro deal with the Sara­cens Mav­er­icks as a de­fend­er to com­pete in Eng­land’s top net­ball com­pe­ti­tion, the Vi­tal­i­ty Su­per Net­ball League in the up­com­ing sea­son, will meet the Ja­maicans led by ace shoot­er Jhaniele Fowler on Sat­ur­day in the open­ing clash, fol­lowed by match­es on Mon­day and on Oc­to­ber 20.

It is the first com­pe­ti­tion for T&T since 2019 due to the on­go­ing pan­dem­ic and it forms part of the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" as well as Ja­maica's prepa­ra­tions for the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, next year.

T&T's con­tin­gent

Team: Kali­fa Mc­Collin (cap­tain), Crys­tal-Ann George (vice cap­tain), Rayann Bris­tol, Afiya Vin­cent, Des­tiny Williams, Janeisha Cas­simy, Shaquan­da Greene -Noel, Oprah Dou­glas, Jameela Mc­Carthy, Jere­sia McEachrane, Aniecia Bap­tiste, Tia Bruno, Afeisha Noel

Tech­ni­cal staff: Althea Mc Collin (coach), Kem­ba Dun­can (as­sis­tant coach),Ashelle Legall (man­ag­er), Jevon Fon­cette (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Demitri Vil­laroel (mas­sage ther­a­pist)