T&T men's crick­et head coach Rayad Em­rit is a hap­py coach af­ter the Red Force’s con­vinc­ing in­nings and 56-run win over Bar­ba­dos Pride at the Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos.

Bar­ba­dos, known for its fierce fast bowlers, pre­pared a pitch made for fast bowl­ing in an at­tempt to get the Caribbean crick­eters pre­pared for the Aus­tralians vis­it to the Caribbean in June.

Pride called up Test bowlers Ke­mar Roach and Ja­son Hold­er with a com­bined 446 Test wick­ets in ad­di­tion to Matthew Forde who is cur­rent­ly a West In­dies white-ball play­er and Jair Mc Al­lis­ter, one of the fastest bowlers in the Caribbean who has West In­dies A team ex­pe­ri­ence.

The Red Force ar­se­nal in­clud­ed Jay­den Seales, cur­rent­ly West In­dies high­est-ranked bowler, An­der­son Phillip, a bowler with two Tests un­der his belt and tow­er­ing fast bowl­ing all­rounder Joshua James.

Em­rit ad­mit­ted the bowlers were hap­py when they were greet­ed by the pitch in Bridgetown.

“When we turned up and we saw the pitch, our fast bowlers were very, very hap­py,” Em­rit said. “So we know there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty of our fast bowlers do­ing well on the wick­et. But to be hon­est, to see the game fin­ish in two days, it was sur­pris­ing to me.”

Af­ter the first ses­sion of the match, his mind was made up that they would be re­turn­ing home ear­li­er than the sched­uled four days.

“When we were on top, we knew it was go­ing to fin­ish, ei­ther way, to be hon­est, two days, I wasn't ex­pect­ing that.”

The Red Force bats­men knew what they were get­ting in­to de­spite Bar­ba­dos’ ar­se­nal.

“So we have qual­i­ty bowlers as well. We have two in­ter­na­tion­al bowlers in our team and our bat­ters bat against them. But we haven't prac­tised on any sort of sur­face, it was very dif­fi­cult to pre­pare for a sur­face like that with­out know­ing what we were go­ing to get. But the guys, when we saw the wick­et, it was more men­tal and I asked them to just be pos­i­tive as much as they can on the wick­et. It's go­ing to be a 'seam­ing-friend­ly' wick­et but we just need to be pos­i­tive.”

The Red Force had the Pride bats­men in a co­nun­drum in the first ses­sion when they were 53/7. Bar­ba­dos nev­er re­cov­ered and were bowled out for 86. The Red Force bats­men didn't suf­fer like the hosts and got 50s from Kamil Pooran and Amir Jan­goo as they to­talled 250 in their on­ly in­nings.

“What­ev­er we do, just stay pos­i­tive. And I know they went out there and that's ex­act­ly what they did. They stayed pos­i­tive,” said the for­mer West In­dies all-rounder, who praised the spir­it the team showed.

“The char­ac­ter that they showed, the bat­ters es­pe­cial­ly, was re­al­ly good to see. It's some­thing that they've been show­ing through­out the sea­son, the en­tire sea­son.”

The bowlers from the twin is­lands drew praise not on­ly from the vis­i­tors but the hosts through­out the two days.

“Even the Bar­ba­dos pub­lic were prais­ing our bowlers, how well we bowled and how con­sis­tent­ly fast they bowled through­out the en­tire in­nings.”

The proud coach, who had suc­cess with the Red Force Un­der-17 play­ers in 2023, sin­gled out the three pac­ers for their ef­forts say­ing: “Even Joshua James. The bounce and pace he got on the wick­et. The swing he got on the wick­et. He swung the ball both ways. He 'seamed' the ball both ways. Jay­den Seales is an in­ter­na­tion­al play­er. He is a very, very good swing bowler as well. And the con­fi­dence that he had go­ing in­to that game. It was just good to see An­der­son Phillip. He has been un­lucky through­out the sea­son. To see him get a wick­et that is suit­ed to fast bowlers was good.”

The Red Force will play their fi­nal two match­es af­ter the tour­na­ment re­sumes fol­low­ing an­oth­er two-week break. The Red Force will host Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons from April 2 at the Bri­an Lara Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba and Guyana Harpy Ea­gles, a week lat­er at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

Em­rit is look­ing for a strong fin­ish to end the 19-year drought of First Class sil­ver­ware for the Red Force. Het said, “The last two games are home. It is in the back of our minds. It is no se­cret. But we are try­ing to take one game at a time. We have to play Ja­maica next. Our main fo­cus is play­ing against Ja­maica.”

With just two match­es to go, Guyana leads with 102.6 points with T&T sec­ond on 101. Em­rit re­mains cau­tious say­ing: “If we can get a good re­sult there (against Ja­maica), then def­i­nite­ly we are in for a ti­tle shot. But we are not re­al­ly con­cen­trat­ing too much. We are not too ahead of our­selves. The guys are con­fi­dent. Which is good. We want to stay con­fi­dent. But we don't want to be over­con­fi­dent. We are play­ing at home. There is al­ways pres­sure play­ing at home.”

The Red Force will, how­ev­er, not have the ser­vices of Phillip and Seales when the tour­na­ment re­sumes af­ter the break. Em­rit ex­plained they will be fine with­out them.

"We are prob­a­bly go­ing to miss Jay­den Seales and An­der­son Philip due to con­trac­tu­al rea­sons in Eng­land. They have to ful­fil their coun­ty con­tracts. So they will be out. But we will be good. We have some young­sters in the mix. And I think we will be good,” said Em­rit.

The Red Force play­ers will re­main ac­tive par­tic­i­pat­ing in the T&T Crick­et Board/Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers T20 Fes­ti­val dur­ing the break.