Mid­dle-or­der bats­men Jyd Goolie and open­er Cephas Coop­er stood tall for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force against the Guyana Harpy Ea­gles in a rain-af­fect­ed open­ing day of the fi­nal round match of the Crick­et West In­dies Four-Day Cham­pi­onship match at the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

Red Force was in­sert­ed in to bat and was in ear­ly trou­ble with the dis­missals of Kamil Pooran, caught by wick­et­keep­er Tevin Im­lach off the bowl­ing of Keemo Paul for four; Amir Jan­goo, who was al­so dis­missed by the Im­lach-Paul com­bi­na­tion for five; and the in-form Ja­son Mo­hammed, caught by Ray­mond Perez off the bowl­ing of Paul for two, as the host was tot­ter­ing at 31 for three in the 13th over. All the wick­ets fell to Paul, who bowled a fiery ear­ly spell on a wick­et that as­sist­ed pac­ers.

The wick­ets were al­so punc­tu­at­ed by the rain, as the crick­eters had to leave the field of play twice in the open­ing ses­sion at the Tra­garete Road venue.

T&T skip­per and wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Joshua Da Sil­va joined Coop­er, and to­geth­er they got to 94 for four. Dur­ing that time, Coop­er reg­is­tered his fourth 50 of the cam­paign.

The home team lost two quick wick­ets, two runs apart, when Coop­er was trapped leg-be­fore by Veerasam­my Per­maul for 50 and Da Sil­va was caught by Niall Smith for 25.

Goolie and Pierre then res­cued the mid­dle or­der. They shared a 79-run part­ner­ship, with Pierre get­ting to 38 and Goolie con­tribut­ing 37 in a bal­anced part­ner­ship.

Ter­rence Hinds scored 19 and shared in a 38-run part­ner­ship with Goolie but was sev­enth out when he was caught in the slips by Paul off the bowl­ing of Ronal­do Al­imo­hammed.

Dur­ing the part­ner­ship, Goolie was able to get to his third First-Class half-cen­tu­ry.

At the close of play, Red Force were 214 for sev­en af­ter 80.3 overs with the overnight bats­men Goolie on 57 not out and Joshua James yet to get off the mark.

Sum­marised scores

At Queen's Park Oval: T&T Red Force are on 214/7 ver­sus Guyana Harpy Ea­gles.

RED FORCE 214/7 (80.3 overs) (Jyd Goolie 57 not out, Cephas Coop­er 50, Khary Pierre 38, Joshua Da Sil­va 25; Keemo Paul 3-38, Niall Smith 2-39, Ronal­do Al­imo­hamed 1-34) vs HARPY EA­GLES.