Stanford Superstars overcame the loss of two of their stellar players to defeat Trinidad & Tobago and expect to be at full strength for the £11.5million showdown with England.

Captain Chris Gayle sat out for personal reasons while Shivnarine Chanderpaul was sidelined with a stiff neck as the all-star team beat the Caribbean 20-over champions by 22 runs.

"Chris had some personal problems back home, so he decided not to play this game because mentally he was not focused," explained stand-in skipper Sylvester Joseph.

"They will both be back for Saturday, definitely. We are hoping everything is well with his family."

Players on the winning side will earn £570,000 each in a week's time and the pair are integral to the home challenge.

Without them it was left to Joseph, who cracked an unbeaten 45, to ensure a competitive total.

"We had our plans and we generally lost wickets too early," Sylvester bemoaned.

"In the end we got a pretty decent total that we knew we could defend.

"The pitch wasn't the best and 140-150 was a challenging total."

Trinidad, who face Middlesex in a £250,000 domestic challenge on Monday, fielded four debutants but gave the Superstars a few jolts.

"It was good," said captain Daren Ganga of the contest. "It gave us an opportunity to have a look at some of our young players.

"The squad against Middlesex will definitely be a bit different, we just needed to see some players in different roles - it was important to give them a chance.

"In any cricket match you want to be victorious at the end and we were no different here.

"Right through we competed but we slipped a little in the field and I was thinking about 120 after the start that we had.

"After 15 overs we were ahead, so there were just a couple of areas to address and we might have developed some good momentum into the Middlesex game."