BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Trinidad & Tobago and West Indies ‘A’ opening batsman Justin Guillen hit a brisk half-century for his adopted Barbados club CounterPoint Wanderers, who brought off a thrilling one-run win off the very last ball against LIME in the opening round of the Barbados Cricket Association Sagicor General Twenty20 tournament on Saturday.
Left-hander Guillen, who first played club cricket in Barbados for ESA Field Pickwick in 2005 when they won the Division 1 (now Elite) championship before joining Wanderers three years later, made 57 off 34 balls with six fours and three sixes at No. 3 in a total of 147 for six off 20 overs at Wildey.
LIME, with current West Indies selector and former Barbados captain and West Indies wicket-keeper/batsman Courtney Browne in their line-up, needed 60 runs off the last five overs and 11 required from the last over. They ended on 146 for seven.
Burly left-hander Ryan Nurse, better known as a former Barbados fast bowler, struck 30 off 19 balls with three sixes and one four at No.5 and the unrelated Ashley Nurse, a West Indies T20 player a couple years ago, also made 30 at the top.
Browne fell for 10 as one of two wickets for former Barbados and West Indies left-arm fast-bowling all-rounder Ian Bradshaw, who conceded just seven runs off four overs.
Title holders CGI Maple, with West Indies fast bowler Kemar Roach in their side, lost to new Sagicor General Super Cup (50-over) champions Sagicor Life UWI by six wickets at Trents.
Maple, who were also beaten by UWI by six runs in the Super Cup final at Kensington Oval last Sunday, scored 137 for six off 20 overs after winning the toss.
UWI, spurred by brisk knocks of 54 not out from veteran Floyd Reifer and 48 by his cousin and fellow Combined Campuses & Colleges first-class player Raymon Reifer, romped to victory with 11 balls to spare.
Floyd Reifer, a former West Indies captain, who is also the UWI coach, slammed four fours in his 39-ball knock, while fellow left-hander Raymon Reifer was at the crease for 41 balls after he opened the innings.
The Reifers featured in a fourth wicket partnership of 54 after Roach, who will be touring Bangladesh next month with the West Indies team but who has been left out of a 23-man provisional Barbados squad for the Caribbean T20 tournament in January, grabbed the first two wickets of first-class players, Jamaican Chadwick Walton and skipper Kyle Corbin – both bowled for three and nought.
Steven Jacobs, the Guyana all-rounder and former West Indies Under-19 team vice-captain, scored 16 not out on his local domestic debut as UWI again showed off their growing list of regional players in all formats of the game.
Apart from the Wanderers-LIME match, there were two other nail-biting results off the very last ball. TeleBarbados Carlton, the 2009 champions, rebounded savagely to beat the 2010 winners ICBL Empire by five wickets at Desmond Haynes Oval and Yorkshire defeated Super Centre Spartan by two wickets at Queen’s Park.
Chasing the series highest target of 159, Carlton needed 59 runs off the last five overs, then 52 off three overs and eventually 17 off six balls.
Their memorable chase in the dying stages was led by seasoned wicket-keeper/batsman Carlo Morris and Barbados Under-19 team batsman Marlon Welcome-Goodman, who featured in an unbroken stand of 61.
Morris, a former Barbados player, smashed an unbeaten 52 off 27 balls with five sixes while left-hander Welcome-Goodman made 30 not out from 14 deliveries.
In the final over bowled by left-arm spinner Ryan Hinds, the Empire captain and former Barbados and West Indies player, Morris struck a six off the third delivery. Then with seven runs needed from the last two balls, Welcome-Goodman a full toss for four through square-leg and smashed a six over midwicket.
Kevin Stoute, no doubt seeking to prove to the new Barbados selection panel that he should be among the national trial invitees for the Caribbean T20 tournament after he was left out of the provisional squad despite topping the Barbados averages in last season’s tournament, made 55 off 51 balls as an opener in Empire’s 158 for seven.
Former Barbados Under-19 team all-rounder Roston Chase, who went to the crease at No.3, was even more enterprising with 33 off 22 balls.
Dayne Maynard, the former Barbados fast bowler, who played 16 first-class matches and has turned into a specialist opening batsman in recent years, showed that at the age of 43 he can still outshine some of the much younger players.
Maynard raced to 56 off 33 balls with six fours and three sixes in a St. Catherine total of 156 for six off 20 overs – the second highest total of the series – as they went on to beat YMPC, missing West Indies T20 players Dwayne Smith and Fidel Edwards, by 37 runs at Bayfield.
