T & T’s Timothy Surujbally, Aspiring to Play for the USA

 By Ricardo Inniss

Timothy Nicholas Surujbally, was born on May 26^th 1984, in the San Fernando Hospital, but grew up in Princes Town, Trinidad & Tobago (T & T), the land of the humming bird and calypso. The dashing right-handed batsman and right-arm off-spinner, was nurtured at an early age at a coaching clinic from Under-10 level, with back-of-the-arm left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed, who later went to represent the West Indies.

He later played for the South-East, and was also captain at Under-13, 15, 17 and 19 levels, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Dwayne Bravo, the Ganga brothers (Daren & Sherwin), Denesh Ramdin, Kieron Pollard, Adrian Barath and Ravi Rampaul, all of whom went on to represent the West Indies team. He also played with national players William Perkins and Samuel Badree.

Timmy, as he is familiarly known by his peers, played club cricket in T & T, first for Wanderers, with Gus Logie as coach, before moving to Powergen Cricket Club, where this time the coach was, Windies assistant coach David Williams.  He represented Trinidad at senior level against a Tobago X1, in a Fruta-20/20 match, in which he was named Man-of-the-Match after scoring 77.

In 2006 Timmy, got a contract to play for a club in New York called Real Challengers, where he hit his highest score to date 175 against Golden Arrow Cricket Club. After returning to T & T, he then in 2007,  migrated to Miami, where he met and married his current wife Nadia. When settled, he started playing (and still plays) for the South Florida Cricket Alliance (SFCA) Premier Zone division 1 Club International. In 2010,he was named “Cricketer of the Year.”      

The prolific batting allrounder, who favors the straight drive and cover drive, but hooks and pull savagely when on the go,  has scored eight (8) centuries so far, in the USA. His favorite

batsman to watch, is none other than Brian Charles Lara. When not playing cricket, he likes going to church and telling people about the love of Christ. His favorite music is Gospel and Reggae Gospel, along with some soft and slow stuff.

When Dream Cricket asked, currently what his aspirations are? The very soft spoken and quiet Timothy Surujbally replied, “before coming to the US, my dream was to play for the West Indies, but now I’m aspiring to play for the USA.”

Equipped with the appropriate cricketing credentials, Timmy has an attractive array of strokes on either side of the wicket, can  produce tidy off-spin, is an excellent slip fielder, and shows the potential to become a skillful leader. He was recently at the helm, when T &T won the 2011 MAQ T20 championship and was named captain of an SFCA X1, to come up against Jamaica on Easter Sunday. Good luck to you Timmy.