T&T's Yan­nic Cari­ah ex­pe­ri­enced his first train­ing ses­sion in Aus­tralia at the Met­ri­con Sta­di­um and ex­pressed great de­light to be part of the West In­dies 15-mem­ber squad.

“I’m feel­ing re­al­ly great to be in the group for the up­com­ing se­ries as well as the T20 World Cup to fol­low. We touched down and the work start­ed. It is a great ho­n­our to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of the re­gion at any lev­el. I’m here and ready to go… any chal­lenges I’m ready for it,” he said.

The 30-year-old, who ar­rived in Aus­tralia as part of the first group of West In­dies play­ers to touch down, "Down Un­der", joined team­mates dur­ing an in­tense train­ing ses­sion on the scenic Gold Coast.

The all­rounder is on his first over­seas tour with the men’s se­nior team and will be part of the re­gion­al team's line-up to face Aus­tralia in a two-match T20 In­ter­na­tion­al Se­ries in Queens­land on Wednes­day and Fri­day, re­spec­tive­ly, ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup which bowls off on Oc­to­ber 16.

The right-hand­ed leg-spin­ner and left-hand­ed bat­ter an­nounced him­self on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage with a well-craft­ed half-cen­tu­ry in the CG Unit­ed ODI Se­ries against New Zee­land in Au­gust. He top-scored with 52 in his first knock at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos.

“The way I per­formed against New Zealand gave me con­fi­dence. Now we’re here in Aus­tralia … this is my first time play­ing here… First, I want to get used to the con­di­tions, as we are a long way from home, and then main­tain my process­es and look to per­form on the big stage.

"I was do­ing a lot of fit­ness work at home and sharp­en­ing up my skills. I have played a lot of crick­et with many mem­bers of the team, so I’ve fit­ted in quite well," said Cari­ah who pre­vi­ous­ly played for West In­dies Un­der-19 at the ICC World Cup 2010 in New Zealand

He was al­so cap­tain of the West In­dies Emerg­ing Play­ers when they won the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 in 2019.

The open­ing match in the two-match se­ries ver­sus the Aus­tralians is on Wednes­day at the Met­ri­con Sta­di­um in the Gold Coast and the sec­ond at The Gab­ba in Bris­bane on Fri­day. The first ball is at 5 am (T&T time).

MATCH SCHED­ULE

Wednes­day: 1st T20I at Met­ri­con Sta­di­um

Fri­day: 2nd T20I at The Gab­ba