Carib Beer Cup: Round One Breakdown

The just concluded first round of the 2004 Carib Cup Cricket Competition provided some interesting performances. With the West Indies team struggling against all comers recently, cricketers in the Caribbean realize that now is the time to put their hands up for consideration and the best way to put forward your case is not to knock on the door but to kick it wide open.

With the West Indies team currently in South Africa the opportunity exist for more than a few youngsters to throw their name into the ring for consideration. Lets look at the performances of Round One?

Lowest Team Totals

85 -- Kenya v West Indies 'B'
97 -- West Indies 'B' v Kenya
108 -- Guyana v Barbados

Highest Team Totals

422/7 decl. -- Barbados v Guyana
335 -- Trinidad & Tobago v Leeward Islands
324 -- Leeward Islands v Trinidad & Tobago
321 -- Guyana v Barbados

Batting

The batsmen in the tournament came good with some very composed performances. There were 3 centuries and 18 half centuries with a number of batsmen getting into the 30s and 40s and not carrying on. Patience, application and concentration would have gotten a lot more of them to 50 or 100 and beyond.

Centuries (3)

Floyd Reifer - 133 (Bar)
Devon Smith - 118* (WI)
Kurt Wilkinson - 116 (Bar)

Half Centuries (18)

Imran Jan - 55 and 58 (T&T)
Krishna Arjune - 97 (GUY)
Shazam Babwah ? 94 (T&T)
Tonito Willett ? 93 (LI)
Seonarine Chattergoon ? 85 (GUY)
Ricardo Powell ? 77 (T&T)
Tamar Lambert ? 76 (JAM)
Shane Jeffers ? 74 (LI)
Ian Bradshaw - 65* (BAR)
Shane Shillingford ? 63 (WI)
Tilshan Maraj ? 61 (T&T)
Wilden Cornwall ? 57 (LI)
Craig Emmanuel ? 55 (WI)
Darren Sammy ? 55 (WI)
David Bernard ? 55 (JAM)
Mario Venturo ? 50 (JAM)
Keith Hibbert ? 50 (JAM)

Bowling

One would think with batting performances like those listed above that the bowling was below average. I will leave that to individual judgement. There were some fine performances with the ball.:

10 wickets or more in the match (1)

Virgil Browne of the Leeward Islands took 8/139 off 39 overs and 2/84 off 30.2 overs.

5 wickets or more in an innings (3)

Virgil Browne (LI) 8/139 v T&T
Dwayne Bravo (T&T) 6/70 v LI
Jason Bennett (WI B) 5/45 v Kenya B

4 wickets in an innings (4)

Ryan Cunningham (JAM) 4/27 v Winward Islands
Pedro Collins (Bar) 4/31 v Guyana
Ian Bradshaw (Bar) 4/69 v Guyana
Lennox Cush (Guy) 4/122 v Barbados

Special Note: Jason Bennett took a hat-trick against Kenya B with the wickets of Collins Obuya (1), Martin Suji (0) and Peter Ongondo (0).

The creation of the West Indies B team seems to be a blessing as it will expose players such as Jason Bennett Dwight Washington Ryan Ramdass and others who otherwise would not have made their national team.

There is a lot of talk about sub-standard performance by our first class cricketers. Round One of this tournament had some very good performances. The cricketing public of the Caribbean would love to see some exceptional performances. Let us hope we get our wish throughout the remainder of the tournament.