For­mer West In­dies vice cap­tain and out-of-favour wick­et-keep­er/bats­man Joshua Da Sil­va is ex­pect­ed to be fit in time to once again lead Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force dur­ing the 2025-26 CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup in T&T from No­vem­ber 19-29.

Da Sil­va, who took over cap­tain­cy from Dar­ren Bra­vo for the 2024 com­pe­ti­tion, has been nurs­ing a left-side shoul­der strain; how­ev­er, T&T’s five-mem­ber se­lec­tion pan­el is con­fi­dent that he will re­cov­er to lead T&T’s hunt for a 15th re­gion­al 50-over ti­tle.

The 2025 Su­per50 com­pe­ti­tion al­so serves as an of­fi­cial ti­tle de­fence for the Red Force, who won the lat­est of its 14 Re­gion­al 50-0ver ti­tles in 2023 but on­ly reached the semi­fi­nal last year be­fore Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos both for­feit­ed last sea­son’s fi­nal, re­sult­ing in a va­cant ti­tle be­ing de­clared.

On Thurs­day, T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) me­dia of­fi­cer, Zaid Mo­hammed, told Guardian Me­dia Sport that the rec­om­mend­ed se­lec­tions have al­ready been sub­mit­ted by the se­lec­tors to the TTCB ex­ec­u­tive, which in turn has sent the 14-man list to Crick­et West In­dies. The fi­nalised list is ex­pect­ed to be made pub­lic in the com­ing days.

​The 27-year-old Da Sil­va is a two-time Su­per50 win­ner, hav­ing se­cured his first ti­tle with the West In­dies Emerg­ing Play­ers in 2019 and his sec­ond as vice-cap­tain with the Red Force in 2023. He has scored 730 runs from 30 List A match­es, at an av­er­age of 30.41 with a high­est to­tal of 103.

Da Sil­va’s in­clu­sion is ex­pect­ed to bol­ster a side that will be miss­ing five reg­u­lar and se­nior play­ers, ac­cord­ing to head coach Rayad Em­rit. The list of ab­sen­tees in­cludes last sea­son’s vice-cap­tain Khary Pierre, fel­low left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein, and fast bowlers Jay­den Seales and An­der­son Phillip. Those four, along with last sea­son’s tour­na­ment top scor­er Amir Jan­goo, will all be away on West In­dies du­ty as the re­gion­al team em­barks on an all-for­mats tour of New Zealand from No­vem­ber 5 to De­cem­ber 22.

On Thurs­day Em­rit said, “It’s good that they are ac­tu­al­ly play­ing at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. As a coach, that’s what you want be­cause it gives a chance to the younger guys to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty with both hands and show that they are ready for re­gion­al crick­et.”

The coach said he has been im­pressed by some of the per­for­mances of those younger play­ers in con­tention for se­lec­tion. The for­mer Red Force play­er sin­gled out Sha­trughan Ram­baran for praise as one of the more con­sis­tent bat­ters through­out the re­cent four-team tour­na­ment, as well as the two tri­al match­es held to give play­ers a plat­form.

“I think he was re­al­ly con­sis­tent and showed the bat­ters what we’re look­ing for. I like his at­ti­tude, his ap­proach. He was very pos­i­tive, which is good to see,” said Em­rit.

“Young Cephas Coop­er again showed his wealth of tal­ent and con­sis­ten­cy. He has strug­gled in the past with his con­sis­ten­cy, but he has proven this year that he can com­pete with the best that we have.”

How­ev­er, he chal­lenged those who make his se­lec­tion to fine-tune their ex­e­cu­tion in the fi­nal build-up to next month’s tour­na­ment.

“We know there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment, and what we lacked through­out is guys re­al­ly dom­i­nat­ing. Apart from Sha­trughan and Coop­er, the bat­ters didn’t show that dom­i­nance through­out, and I need our bat­ters, es­pe­cial­ly the se­nior ones, to step up,” he said.

“We are on­ly two and a half weeks away from the tour­na­ment, and we would re­al­ly like to see the scores more over the 300 mark be­cause we are play­ing on good wick­ets.”

De­scrib­ing the bowl­ing per­for­mances dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion phase as a “mixed bag”, Em­rit did com­mend sev­er­al of his bowlers – name­ly vet­er­an spin­ners Ricky Jaipaul and Yan­nic Cari­ah – and al­so high­light­ed the per­for­mances of young fast bowler Ab­dul-Ra­heem Top­pin and up­com­ing all-rounder Navin Bidaisee.

Em­rit said, “What I am look­ing for as a coach now is that the guys who are se­lect­ed try to get that pos­i­tive en­er­gy go­ing and make sure that they know their roles.”

The Red Force team is ex­pect­ed to play three more warm-up match­es against a squad se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent T&T at the 2025 Bo­li­var­i­an Games in Pe­ru from No­vem­ber 22 to De­cem­ber 7.

The first warm-up is card­ed for to­day at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, while games two and three will be played on Mon­day, No­vem­ber 3, and Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 5, at the Queen’s Park Oval, St Clair, Port-of-Spain.