T&T Crick­et Board’s (TTCB) se­lec­tors have made three changes to the 15-mem­ber T&T team orig­i­nal­ly cho­sen to at­tend the 20th Bo­li­var­i­an Games in Pe­ru from No­vem­ber 22 to De­cem­ber 7.

The changes have come as a re­sult of re­cent im­pres­sive in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances dur­ing the T&T Red Force team’s tri­als, which in­clud­ed the four-team Na­tion­al Se­nior 50 Overs Cup, fol­lowed by two tri­al match­es.

Top-or­der bats­man Sha­trughan Ram­baran, who has come in for high praise from Red Force head coach Rayad Em­rit, was re­moved from the orig­i­nal squad list that was sub­mit­ted by the TTCB to Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), along with left-arm spin­ner Ricky Jaipaul and fast bowler Justin Man­nick.

It is un­der­stood that all three play­ers are set to be in­clud­ed in the se­nior Red Force team for T&T’s ti­tle de­fence in the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup, which will be held in Trinidad and To­ba­go from No­vem­ber 19-29.

Left-hand­ed spin­ner Damion Joachim, wick­et-keep­er/bats­man Leonar­do Julien, and all-rounder Teshawn Cas­tro have been added to the Bo­li­var­i­an Games squad as re­place­ments.

Among the no­table se­lec­tions is for­mer se­nior Red Force open­er Vikash Mo­han, who will cap­tain the team to Pe­ru. For­mer West In­dies un­der-15 cap­tain An­drew Ram­baran will act as Mo­han’s vice cap­tain on the tour.

Apart from Mo­han, oth­er play­ers with ex­pe­ri­ence at the first-class and/or List A lev­el are Julien, Kamil Pooran, and Shaaron Lewis. The squad al­so in­cludes bur­geon­ing open­er Kyle Ram­doo, who struck 101 bat­ting dur­ing the Red Force team’s most re­cent tri­al match on Tues­day at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre, Bal­main, Cou­va.

The Bo­li­var­i­an Games is a mul­ti-sport event held in ho­n­our of Simón Bolí­var and or­gan­ised by the Bo­li­var­i­an Sports Or­gan­i­sa­tion. The event is tra­di­tion­al­ly open to ath­letes from Bo­livia, Colom­bia, Ecuador, Pana­ma, Pe­ru, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Venezuela.

This year, T&T will be one of four Caribbean teams in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the games, along with Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, and An­guil­la, mark­ing a his­toric en­try for crick­et in­to the South Amer­i­can sport­ing event.

Fol­low­ing an of­fi­cial vis­it to Li­ma, Pe­ru, by Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low in Ju­ly of this year, CWI an­nounced its in­ten­tion to spear­head the es­tab­lish­ment of La Fed­eración de Crí­quet de las Améri­c­as (FE­CA). The pro­posed body will act as a col­lab­o­ra­tive plat­form to co­or­di­nate the growth of crick­et across the Amer­i­c­as, with CWI as­sum­ing a lead­ing role as the on­ly ICC Full Mem­ber in the hemi­sphere.

Speak­ing at the time of the an­nounce­ment, Shal­low said, “Crick­et West In­dies em­braces its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty not on­ly to the Caribbean but to the wider re­gion. We recog­nise the im­por­tance of struc­ture, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and a uni­fied vi­sion to un­lock the im­mense po­ten­tial that ex­ists through­out the Amer­i­c­as.”

Caribbean na­tions are al­so look­ing for­ward to the 2027 Pan Amer­i­can Games, align­ing with crick­et’s rein­tro­duc­tion to the Olympic Games at Los An­ge­les 2028.