Jamaica became this year’s WICB three-day champions when they crushed defending champions Windward Islands inside two days by an innings and 77 runs at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground yesterday.
A gritty 46 by number seven, left handed batsman, Larry Edward, and 32 from Sunil Ambris, only served to delay the inevitable as the side had another batting collapse as was the case in the first innings when they were bundled out for 99. They did marginally better yesterday attempting to clear a deficit of 221 but could only reach 144 (44) after the Jamaicans had declared their innings closed on 320-6 from 89 overs earlier in the day.
Right arm pacers Marquino Mindley and James Mc Donald started the demise of the Windwards with aggressive, controlled fast bowling. They ended with 2-13 (3) and 2-41 (10) respectively while spinners Fabian Allen and Donavan Nelson contributed with 2-28 apiece.
In the morning session, Jamaica resumed on their overnight total of 215-2 with John Campbell on 145 and Brian Gayle on 18. Gayle only added two runs to his overnight score but Campbell got support from Cristhna Graham who made 51; Campbell went on to make 175.
Edward grabbed another five-wicket haul to end with 5-86 from 33 overs of left-arm spin.
When the Windwards batted, Ambris showed the steely courage that was not displayed by the rest of his teammates who came before him and only by Edward, who came after him. Ambris batted without a helmet as the strapping Jamaican right arm pacer Mc Donald extracted bounce from the otherwise docile DCC wicket.
Ambris went on the back foot and slapped Mc Donald to the backward point boundary and then followed up with a front foot drive on the up for six over long off after surviving a few hostile bouncers.
But like in the first innings when it appeared as if the breach would be mended, the defending champion’s batsmen found ways to be dismissed. Dwight Thomas softly pushed at a Nelson delivery to Campbell just as he started to look comfortable.
Then Jamaal James did the ridiculous when his team was in dire straits. He wildly swiped across the line of a straight delivery and was dismissed lbw without scoring, further placing his team squarely in the face of an innings defeat.
Five wickets had fallen and they had not reached 50 but Ambris remained positive when he found a partner in Edward, who is more known for his left arm spin. The pair nurdled the ball around initially and hit the odd boundary before they took their team to tea at 87-5 needing still 134 runs more to make the Jamaicans bat again.
Ambris was on 28 while Edwards had shot to 23.
Upon resumption, however, the dismissals of Ambris, who was run out attempting a second run, and Terron Simon, caught by Fabian Allen off a top edged Donavan Nelson delivery, caused things to further go awry. Ambris’s 32 (1×4, 1×6) came in 79 minutes and he faced 46 balls.
Edward became the anchor of the shaky ship when he featured in a 42-run eight wicket partnership with Ray Jordan (15). When this ended though none of the other batsmen provided any resistance which eventually saw Edward, attempting a huge hit, losing his wicket.
He stroked eight boundaries in his knock, faced 83 balls and stayed at the crease for 137 minutes.
