Tuesday, October 6 2009

Trinidad and Tobago allrounder, Britney Cooper is looking forward to the challenge of representing the West Indies Women’s cricket team in a friendly series against South Africa later this month.

The West Indies women’s side will play three One-Day Internationals and three Twenty20 matches while in South Africa as part of early preparation for the 2010 Women’s World T20 tournament in St Kitts next year.

Cooper, the tournament MVP at the West Indies Women’s Championship in Guyana in August, described her selection as the fulfilment of a dream.

“I am really excited. I worked hard and the entire TT team was behind me 100 percent,” Cooper told reporters.

She anticipates she will need to lift her game to be more competitive at the higher level.

“It will be hard, because it is new atmosphere and everything will be different. But when I was going to Guyana for the regional tournament in August, I told myself that once I got the chance to bowl or bat, I was going to perform and I will be thinking the same way when I get to South Africa, so I do not feel intimated,” Cooper said.

Cooper is among four newcomers in the Windies squad for the October 14-28 tour.

The other rookies are Guyana’s Tremayne Smartt and Shemaine Campbell and TT’s Amanda Samaroo.

The squad also includes Jamaican all-rounder and West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) Women’s Player of the Year Stafanie Taylor, who missed the regional tournament in Guyana this summer,



SQUAD: Merissa Aguilleira (captain), Anisa Mohammed, Shemaine Campbell, Britney Cooper, Shanel Daley, Deandra Dottin, Cordel Jack, Stacy Ann King, Pamela Lavine, Chadean Nation, Amanda Samaroo, Tremayne Smartt, Shakera Selman, Stafanie Taylor.

(CMC)