Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der-19 cap­tain Sama­ra Ram­nath is look­ing for­ward to repli­cat­ing her form dis­played dur­ing the West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 tour­na­ment and the West In­dies Un­der-19 T20 se­ries against the USA Un­der-19 team to the up­com­ing Massy Stores Women’s Caribbean Pre­mier League with the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers Women, start­ing in two weeks time.

The open­er and all-rounder told jour­nal­ists at the WC­PL launch at the Massy Stores head­quar­ters on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day, that she was look­ing for­ward to the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I'm re­al­ly, re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to the CPL get­ting the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play among these se­nior play­ers and in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers. I think it's a re­al­ly good op­por­tu­ni­ty for me as a young play­er.”

Ram­nath, along with young play­ers like Zai­da James and Realean­na Grim­mond, who re­cent­ly took part in the un­der-19 tour­na­ments, is look­ing for­ward to see­ing more of her peers get op­por­tu­ni­ties in the WC­PL.

“I think we have a lot of great tal­ents, so giv­ing us the ex­po­sure and the op­por­tu­ni­ty would be re­al­ly great. We would be re­al­ly grate­ful for it.”

Ram­nath is al­so call­ing for the sup­port of the home fans at the Bri­an Lara Acad­e­my, where the tour­na­ment will be played in Tarou­ba.

“Come out and sup­port us. I think TKR is go­ing to take this ti­tle this year.”

Bar­ba­di­an team­mate, fast bowler Shamil­lia Con­nell, is al­so hop­ing for an im­proved re­sult this sea­son. The Knight Rid­ers fin­ished third of three teams and watched from the side­lines as the Ama­zon War­riors and the Roy­als fought for the fi­nal.

“I'm very con­fi­dent. As you can see, we have a fair­ly dif­fer­ent dy­nam­ic team, with Meg Lan­ning and a few Aus­tralians and In­di­ans in our  set­up," Con­nell ex­plained. “So that's a big boost to our line­up, and we are very con­fi­dent go­ing in­to this women's CPL hav­ing land­ed in.”

This year, the WC­PL will be played sep­a­rate­ly, and apart from the men, Con­nell sees the women's game con­tin­u­ing to grow.

“Women are start­ing to take over things, so it's a very good op­por­tu­ni­ty for the women to ac­tu­al­ly get to show­case their skills.”

Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, who will be cam­paign­ing once again with last year’s beat­en fi­nal­ists, the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, is hop­ing to fin­ish bet­ter than their run­ner-up po­si­tion in 2023. 

“That's the end goal, and we're al­ways look­ing to win. So I do be­lieve that as long as we play good crick­et, I think we can get there.”

The suc­cess­ful off-spin­ner is ex­pect­ed to play her role in mak­ing the goal a re­al­i­ty.

“This is a game of learn­ing every day, and you can nev­er learn enough,"  Ramharack ex­plains. “So, yeah, I'm work­ing on a cou­ple of things that hope­ful­ly I can bring out in any tour­na­ment, and, you know, it should be able to work.”.

Play­er of cham­pi­ons Bar­ba­dos Roy­als, Aaliyah Al­leyne, is con­fi­dent the team will re­peat as cham­pi­ons and is al­so hap­py about the news that cham­pi­on bat­ter De­an­dra Dot­tin has re­cent­ly an­nounced she is once again avail­able to the West In­dies. 

“I think for any team, De­an­dre is a plus for us as a West In­dies unit. I'm not a se­lec­tor, but hope­ful­ly she's se­lect­ed. And it's on­ly a bonus for the rest of this team, es­pe­cial­ly as we are com­ing up in a World Cup year.”

Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent of the Massy Group, Am­bikah Mon­groo, re­it­er­at­ed Massy’s com­mit­ment to the WC­PL with their five-year deal.

“While the WC­PL brings to­geth­er fe­male ath­letes from around the world, we be­lieve in our Caribbean ath­letes, and we want to see them shine.”