As officials of the West Indies Cricket Board and the sponsors were launching the 2015 Nagico Super50 series at the National Cricket Centre (NCC) in Couva, the rain was pelting down on an already rain-soaked outfield.
This brought a worried look to the face of CEO of the TTCB Suruj Ragoonath who was, at the time, bringing the media up to date on the progress of preparations for the tournament.
The second edition of the tournament gets off tomorrow, with matches at the Queen’s Park Oval and at the NCC. At the NCC, Barbados plays the CCC, while at the Queen’s Park Oval Windwards Volcanoes play the Guyana Jaguars. T&T’s Red Force goes into action on Friday when they play against the West Indies Under-19 team at Shaw Park. Ragoonath said preparations were coming along nicely but the weather was proving a decisive factor.
He said: “We are coming along really well only if the sun could peep out and assist us. Everything else is on stream, the teams are coming in from today, so it is just for good weather on the final stretch here and everything will be fine.”
The TTCB has taken a decision not to pre-sell tickets and fans wanting to see the matches will have to purchase tickets on the day of the matches at the venues. There are some tickets for only the Red Force matches and these will be pre-sold at Nagico’s offices throughout T&T.
Meanwhile, WICB director Baldath Mahabir said the tournament was a make or break for many players and they would want to come out and prove themselves. “We have the England series, as well as the Australian series coming up and guys playing here would be looking towards selection for those tours. In this regard I think that we are going to see some really good cricket and we want to urge the fans to come out and support the tournament, as they did last year.”
Paul Dijkhoffz executive MARKETING manager of Nagico said his company was really happy with the tournament thus far and was hoping as exciting finals, as was had in 2014.
“We are happy to be associated with the cricket, we are in 19 territories in the Caribbean and we are involved in cricket in some way or the other in all 19 territories. We are looking forward to another great tournament and hopefully we will have another wonderful finals like we had last time around,” he said.