Says Colin Benjamin
As Mother Nature continued its relentless downpour in the city it brought the scheduled second day of the fourth round matches in the West Indies Cricket Board regional Under-19 three-day tournament to a halt yesterday.
For the second day in succession, all three scheduled matches were rained out.
For the Guyana team, it seems as if all they could do is stand and watch their title hopes being washed away.
The Guyana team is in fourth position with 15.8 points and needed an outright win against the Windward Islands in this round to improve their position.
In assessing the hopes of the home side, one can only speculate that a likely washout of this encounter, will almost certainly curtail the hopes of the young Guyanese to push for the lucrative honour of winning the three-day title on home turf.
This feat was last accomplished when Malteenoes and current Guyana senior team fringe player, Steven Jacobs led the under-19 side in 2006.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport yesterday, Guyana Manager Raymond Barton, spoke of the displeasure in the Guyana camp.
“Going into this game versus the Windwards, we were hoping that Mother Nature was going to smile on us, given that we needed full points from this match and our upcoming one later in the week versus Barbados, if we were going to make a serious charge on winning the title.
“Obviously now we will have to reassess that aim and look to at least finish third in the table,” Barton added.
When asked if the team was already looking ahead to the limited overs leg of the competition, the manager stated that they team was not looking that far ahead as yet.
He added that once the weather improves they hope to finish the three-day tournament with a possible victory.
Also sharing similar disgust towards the inclement weather was the coach of the defending champions Windward Islands.
Although they came into this round knowing that they were out of the running, with regards to defending their title, according to coach Irvin Warrican, they were also hoping to finish the three-day competition with pride and move up the points table.
“It’s been a huge disappointment we another day of this important game versus Guyana has been washed out. I would presume all the other teams except for the Jamaicans, who are leading the points’ standing, share a similar feeling.
The West Indies Cricket Board also would also be disadvantaged by the lack of cricket being played, since obviously at the end of this tournament a squad for the Under-19 World Cup in Australia will be picked and selecting such a important squad from a rained out tournament wouldn’t be ideal.
When asked if he is disappointed that the Windwards haven’t have put up a better showing as defending champions this year, Warrican said..”The Windwards generally haven’t done well in most levels of regional cricket. Even though we came here as the defending champions, which was great achievement for Windwards cricket and we were obviously certainly keen on keeping it that way, we also were very much aware that the other teams were going to come hard. We started slowly in our opening two games and although we improved a lot in our third round draw versus the Leewards, with the weather having a big say now in the competition – that slow start has come back to haunt us.”
Although the Windwards campaign has been disappointing, coming into this fourth round their Captain Kavem Hodge had much to smile about as he and Trinidadian left-arm spinner Derone Davis, lead the batting and bowling aggregates respectively.
The two players, who represented the West Indies Under-19 against Australia in Dubai earlier this year, have performed very well in the three matches so far. The 18-year-old right-hander Hodge has so far compiled 249 runs in five innings to be the leading run-scorer, which includes the tournament’s highest score of 155 not out in the last round against the Leewards at Bourda.
Davis has been the stand-out bowler so far. He has captured 23 wickets at a miserly average of just 9.26 runs per wicket, with best bowling figures of seven wickets for 25 runs off 25.1 overs in the dramatic third round win over Guyana at Everest.
Top 5 batsmen
Kavem Hodge (Windward Islands) 249 runs
Akeal Hosein (Trinidad & Tobago) 196 runs
Sunil Ambris (Windward Islands) 186 runs
Rahkeem Cornwall (Leeward Islands) 179 runs
John Campbell (Jamaica) 151 runs
Top 5 bowlers
Derone Davis (Trinidad & Tobago) 23 wickets
Larry Edward (Windward Islands) 18 wickets
Amir Khan (Guyana) 14 wickets
Donovan Nelson (Jamaica) 12 wickets
Jovan Ali (Trinidad & Tobago) 12 wickets
