PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Former Guyana and West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan has expressed excitement after being drafted by Trinidad and Tobago Red Force at the inaugural West Indies Cricket Board Professional Cricket League Draft Ceremony, at Accra Beach Hotel, Barbados last Monday morning.

Sarwan will be wearing the Red Force colours for the very first time at the WICB Regional Four Day Tournament which bowls off on November 4 and the Guyanese batsman, during an interview on the SportsMax Zone yesterday, said he was delighted to be reunited with former coach Gus Logie, now in charge of the Red Force.
“I’m pretty excited, it’s a great opportunity,” Sarwan stated.
“I have always been well received in Trinidad, so representing Trinidad is a great privilege and honour. To have Gus Logie as the coach, who has coached me since I was fifteen, I know I would be very comfortable and I’m excited to be a part of team,” the right-hander continued.
He went on to speculate that the reason he was overlooked by Guyana at yesterday’s draft was because of ill-feeling towards him by a certain Guyanese official.
“I knew they were not going to pick me because there is a lot of feud. There is one individual who doesn’t really like me. Obviously I knew that was going to happen, I was prepared for it so it wasn’t a situation where I was surprised or anything like that,” he explained.
The 34-year-old said his main goal is to be healthy and fit and score big hundreds to get back in contention for the West Indies team.
“My main objective is to try and get myself fit to try and play in the 2015 World Cup,” he exclaimed. “The key for me is to try and get myself ready for the regional tournaments and I’ll make a very big statement there and then we would go from there.”
Sarwan acknowledged that with his experience, he will have to play a mentorship role to some of TT’s young batsmen and is looking forward to the role.
T&T play their first game on November 11 against Barbados Franchise at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain.

(First published in The Trinidad & Tobago Newsday)