BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago used a superb maiden century from Justin Guillen to stage an amazing fightback against Barbados on day three to give themselves a chance of victory in their third-round WICB First-class match yesterday.
After conceding a first innings lead of 115, T&T responded with a close of play score of 299 for seven, a lead of 184 going into the final day at Kensington Oval.
Leading the counter-attack, was left-hander Guillen, who converted his maiden first-class half-century into a superb century, and wicket-keeper Denesh Ramdin, who is unbeaten on 94.
Guillen made a stroke-filled 134 off just 154 balls, with 19 fours and two sixes, both of which went out of the ground.
The pair came together with the side tottering on 98 for four and they added 138 for the fifth wicket at better than a run-a-minute.
Guillen, who models himself on Justin Langer the former Australian opener, played a number of spanking drives and cuts.
He also used his feet very well against the slow bowlers, with his two sixes coming from powerful hits over wide long-on.
He reached triple figures off just 110 balls in 140 minutes, with 13 fours and two sixes. He dominated the bowlers and in the two-hour session between lunch and tea, scored 98 runs as the Trinidadians notched a rapid 156 in that period.
When play resumes on Monday, Ramdin will be looking for his second century in as many matches, following his 109 not out against Guyana in Antigua last weekend.
So far, he has batted for just over three hours, faced 141 balls and counted 13 boundaries.
He offered two chances – at 24 and 73 – both to Dale Richards at first slip off the bowling of pacers Tino Best and Kemar Roach.
Outside of that, Ramdin batted well and gathered most of his runs from solid drives and powerful cuts.
The repair job had to be done after Pedro Collins (3-42) wrecked the top of the innings with the new ball.
The left-arm pacer took three wickets for no runs in a three-over period before lunch. He had Lendl Simmons and Jason Mohammed both caught behind by wicket-keeper Patrick Browne and also sent back skipper Daren Ganga, leg-before for a “duck”.
Earlier in the day, leg-spinner Imran Khan took a career-best seven for 71 from 21 overs to bring a swift end to the Barbados innings, after they started the day on 327 for six.
He started the day with three wickets and took all four that fell in the first hour – all to good catches.
Khan now has 18 wickets for the season.
The last man out was skipper Ryan Hinds who made a season-high 139 from 230 balls with 14 boundaries. Hinds batted for 4 ¾ hours. He achieved a personal milestone, reaching 6,000 first-class runs when he had scored 121.
