CWI Media Release: Brandon King slammed a second first-class hundred, but it failed to ignite the Jamaica Scorpions second innings batting, and Trinidad & Tobago Red Force completed a season sweep over them to bring the curtain down on the 2018-19 West Indies Championship with an 85-run victory on Sunday here.
King lit up an otherwise mundane final day of the rescheduled first round match at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy with an impressive 133, but the Scorpions, chasing 338 for victory, were bowled out for 252 in their second innings inside the first hour after tea. King struck 18 fours and four sixes from 119 balls in three hours at the crease and was one of only two Scorpions batsmen to pass 20, as he dominated half-century stands with his captain Paul Palmer and Kennar Lewis which brought some respectability to the batting.
Rookie WINDIES opener John Campbell made 25, but King held the innings together, as he put on 75 for the fifth wicket Lewis and 57 for the seventh wicket with Lewis before he fell to veteran leg-spinner Imran Khan, whose 3-48 from 13 overs made him the pick of the Red Force bowlers.
Familiarity bred success for Jamaica-born, Red Force fast-medium bowler Odean Smith, as he supported Khan in the demolition of the Scorpions’ batting with 3-56 from 15 overs. The result meant that Red Force gained 21.8 points to end in fourth place in the Championship on 112.4 and Scorpions collected 8.6 to finish fifth on 97.2.
Earlier, starting the day on 282 for nine, Red Force were bowled out inside the first half-hour for 295 in their second innings.
WINDIES international Jason Mohammed remained not out on 110, but WINDIES strike bowler Shannon Gabriel, his overnight partner, gave a return catch to Scorpions first innings bowling hero Nicholson Gordon to bring the innings to a close, after they frustrated the visitors by extending their last wicket stand to 38.
Gordon ended with 2-55 from 14.4 overs to follow his first innings seven-wicket haul, but Mohammed pipped him for the Player-of-the-Match prize.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Marquee batsman Dwayne Smith says he finds untenable the deafening silence from Caribbean Premier League officials over outstanding payments to Barbados Tridents players for the 2018 season. The 35-year-old raised the issue of non-payment of monies last December, but said last week there was still no word from the league or Tridents franchise on when the situation would be rectified. “It is very frustrating because we don't go out there just to play cricket. It's a job and when we do our job we expect to be paid,” Smith said. “It's something we really need to look at. No one is saying anything; you don't know what's going on and all we're hearing is everybody asking about when is the draft.” There has been no word on the date of the draft for the 2019 tournament, even though league officials announced in January it would take place between August 21 and September 27.
The news came to me via a WhatsApp from a Jamaican friend on Thursday February 28, 2019 at 8:57 a.m. Grenada time. “Mawnin. Heard that Tony Becca died,” she messaged. “Oh!” I replied in dismay, and immediately set about verifying the information, then sharing the unfortunate news with my family. Still in shock and disbelief, especially after reading about the details surrounding his death, I set about searching through my past email correspondence with Mr Becca, ‘the other Tony,’ to find content to pen this article.
I wish I didn’t have to be writing another remembrance at what seems like too soon after Tony Cozier departed this life. I wished too, that I could turn back time. You see, while the English and West Indian batsmen were scoring runs like crazy during the 4th One Day International in Grenada the day before his passing, I had thought to myself “I wonder if Mr Becca is watching?” Perhaps his article to have been published on Sunday March 3 would have been about that match http://www.cricketinterviews.com/grenada-thanks-chris-gayle/. For over 15 years, we’d periodically discuss West Indies cricket, particularly the state of performances at the regional and international cricket.
I had first met Mr Becca during my initial assignment for CaribbeanCricket.com in 2003 at Sabina Park. We did not speak much that year. Still a little daunted by being in the company of such great famous journalists like him and Tony Cozier, I had pretty much kept quiet, choosing to observe more than I spoke. This could also describe Mr Becca’s disposition in the press box over the years. In the early years of our association, he was still doing reports which required him to watch all of a match. On the contrary, I was in and out of the press box often.
The first recollection of me interviewing Mr Becca was in March 2005, after then President of the West Indies Cricket Board, Teddy Griffith announced during a broadcast that those players with Cable & Wireless contracts would not be eligible to play in the forthcoming series. I was required to get reactions from key people. Of course, Mr Becca was one of those who I sought an opinion from.
My assignments for CaribbeanCricket.com mostly required doing one-on-one interviews with players and other persons involved in West Indies cricket. It was therefore necessary for me to attend as many matches as possible, including those played during regional tournaments. In 2005, I decided to go to rural Jamaica on the weekends of March 11 and March 18 to cover matches to be played at the Alpart Sports Complex in St Elizabeth. Mr Becca also travelled down for those matches.
It has been tough going assessing a disrupted West Indies as they prepare for the Cricket World Cup; when one thing or the other has continuously kept potential starters out of the line-up over the last eight months. However, we did manage to make several observations from teams fielded from the available resources.
Firstly, what could prevent a fit Evin Lewis from being named in the World Cup squad? Not even a lack of form, it seems. Certainly not Kieran Powell, Chandrapaul Hemraj or John Campbell making even a whispered claim for the opening position while the left-hander was unavailable for whatever reasons.
To say ‘no Chris Gayle, no runs’ is the easiest ‘analysis’ of the Windies batting display during the England tour. However, there was no Gayle on the Indian subcontinent when batsmen (Hetmyer and Hope), from this same line-up, gave several fairly decent accounts of themselves. But as has been, what we can now call, the innate issue with the West Indies – Hope and Hetmyer were a far cry from consistent during this tour.
However, if the West Indies has any hopes of being competitive in anywise at the World Cup, there is need to stress the importance of consistency from Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer. There was genuine excitement for what Hope would bring to the just-concluded limited overs leg of the England series, but following an impressive 64 in the first ODI and a steady 33 in the second, the right-hander did not look himself. Still, we keep in mind that Hope was in good nick on the previous two tours (of India and Bangladesh),remaining hopeful this series was a mandatory ‘bad patch’ (could we label him ‘out of form’ based on a handful of matches?) and that following this break, we’ll see an in-form Shai Hope when the Tri-Series comes around.
There is less optimism in Rovman Powell’s case, as there is a very realistic possibility that he might have lost his seat on that plane to Europe. Powell, who has had an almost uncontested place in the West Indies team since the World Cup Qualifiers, in March of last year, failed to make the ‘finisher’ position his own, prior to England’s tour of the Caribbean. There were those of us willing the Jamaican on, to make hay while the sun shined; that is, making himself indispensable to this team while he was preferred to Brathwaite or while the likes of Russell was unavailable. However, it is a sad truth that the talent we know the right-hander possesses has, to date, seldom come to fruition on the international stage.
Now, with Russell being Windies’ number one choice as finisher and based on Brathwaite’s recent displays with the ball in the just-concluded tour, bumping him up to number two; Powell suddenly finds himself down the pecking order. There is still hope, if a fit Rovman Powell should have a last roll of the dice when the tri-nation series among Bangladesh, Ireland and the West Indies bowls off just before the World Cup; where both Russell and Brathwaite should be involved in IPL 2019 as CWI seems determined not to request players to cut their IPL tournament short to be involved.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – A bizarre second innings declaration by Leeward Islands Hurricanes captured the headlines and overshadowed a brilliant spell from Jamaica Scorpions pacer Nicholson Gordon in the West Indies Championship today. The Hurricanes – trailing by 101 on first innings – declared their second innings on 83 for two about 40 minutes after lunch on the second day of their rescheduled fourth round match at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground here, thus conceding defeat and handing Barbados Pride an innings and 18 runs victory.
More importantly, Hurricanes’ bid to hold onto second place in the Championship failed, as the result moved the Pride into that position on 134.2 points – a mere 0.2 more than their hosts – who will secure third place, regardless of the outcome in the other match taking place.
In that game – Gordon followed up his destruction of the Red Force top-order batting the previous day by leading the demolition of the bottom half, finishing with career-best figures, before the Scorpions’ stayed in contention with defiant batting before stumps were drawn on the second day of their rescheduled first round match at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad.
Hurricanes lost to Pride by an innings and 18 runs
Opener Montcin Hodge was not out on 40 – carrying his aggregate for the season to 711 and second only to the 745 of veteran Windward Islands Volcanoes left-hander opener Devon Smith – and Akeem Saunders was not out on five, when the decision to declare was taken. The Hurricanes had lost Keacy Carty caught at second slip off Marquino Mindley for four in the second over, and almost an hour later, Devon Thomas was caught at first slip off Keon Harding for 21 – and were looking to rebuild before their decision to concede defeat.
Earlier, starting the day on 154 for four, the Pride declared their first innings after the first 45 minutes of play. Captain Shamarh Brooks finished with the top score of 82 – after resuming on 79 – and overnight partner, WINDIES wicketkeeper/batsman Shane Dowrich was dismissed without adding to his overnight 28.
Keon Harding made 21 and was only one of the remaining batsmen that got into double figures, as WINDIES fast bowler Alzarri Joseph ended with 4-28 from 12.5 overs and his captain, champion off-spinner Rahkeem Cornwall finished with 3-86 to end with a Championship-high 54 wickets.
Red Force (389) vs Scorpions 282-6
Gordon claimed three of the last five Red Force scalps – including top-scorer, WINDIES international Jason Mohammed for 94 – to end with an impressive 7-70 from 22 overs.
Starting the day on 338 for five, the home team could find little stability from the rest of the batting, after Mohammed was dismissed in the second over of the day.
Part-time leg-spinner Nkrumah Bonner brought the innings to a close, when he trapped WINDIES strike bowler Shannon Gabriel lbw for nine, finishing with 2-43 from 10.5 overs.
Test batsman Jermaine Blackwood propped up the top order of the Scorpions batting with 66 – his third half-century of the season – and shared the same number for the fourth wicket with Guyanese left-hander Assad Fudadin.
But the visitors stumbled to 187 for five and required a stand of 81 – unbroken – between Bonner, not out on 42, and Brandon King to beef up their total.
King fell for 59 in the four overs before the close, as Gabriel and new-ball partner Anderson Phillip ended the day with two scalps apiece.
