by EZRA STUART

in Guyana

SPIN WILL PLAY a key role in determining whether host country Guyana or title holders Trinidad and Tobago capture a record tenth regional One-Day cricket title when the WICB President's Cup day-night final is contested here today.

The match, which is expected to attract over 5 000 fans, starts at 1:30 p.m. and will finish under floodlights at around 9 p.m. (Eastern Caribbean time).

Both teams had a rest day yesterday and would be reflecting on their contrasting semi-final victories on Monday and Tuesday while plotting strategy to deal with the opposition on what is expected to be another slow and low surface at the Guyana National Stadium in Providence.

Trinidad and Tobago, who will be playing in their third straight final after losing to Jamaica at the 3Ws Oval in 2007 and defeating Barbados last year at this venue, had to fight all the way before prevailing by two wickets over Barbados in Monday's first semi-final.

They were indebted to their two most experienced players, captain Daren Ganga, who hit a match-winning unbeaten 79 and all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who captured a career-best six wickets at the regional One-Day level and also chipped in with a fluent 32.

In the second semi-final, Guyana comfortably defeated the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) by six wickets with 9.4 overs to spare after an early hiccup, chasing a modest victory target of 152 runs.

Skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan and the experienced Shivnarine Chanderpaul saved their blushes with an unbroken 91-run fifth-wicket partnership after another key batsman Narsingh Deonarine, the only player with a century in the preliminaries, gifted his wicket when set.

Guyana will look to their spin trio of leg-spinner Davendra Bishoo, left-armer Veerasammy Permaul and off-spinning all-rounder Royston Crandon to restrict the Trinidad and Tobago scoring.

The Guyanese have also been utilising the useful off-spin of Deonarine but they would need to get newball bowlers Esaun Crandon and Christopher Barnwell to keep things tight at the start of the innings against Trinidad and Tobago's exciting openers, Lendl Simmons and Adrian Barath.

Big-hitting middle order batsman Kieron Pollard is yet to get going and after his ten-ball "duck" in the semi-final against Barbados when he was bowled by leg-spinner Nikolai Charles hitting across the line, is due for a big score. But he may find that the Guyanese spinners are not very easy to hit out of the ground.

Trinidad and Tobago may once again opt to use leg-spinner Samuel Badree to share the newball with Ravi Rampaul. Left-arm unorthodox spinner Dave Mohammed will have a massive test against Chanderpaul, Sarwan and Deonarine as well as Sherwin Ganga with his uncomplicated off-spin.

Both Simmons and Pollard are capable of useful medium pace while Bravo's clever variations of pace, could once again pay dividends on the lifeless pitches which have been churned out throughout the nine-day tournament.