Bowling the key in SVG cricket triumph

KINGSTOWN: Team manager Selwyn Allen and captain Olanzo Jackson have identified bowling strength as the key to St Vincent and the Grenadines’ success in Windward Islands cricket. St Vincent and the Gren-adines (SVG) notched their third championship win in a row and fourth in five years this past weekend when they won the 2003 tournament in Domi-nica. “Right now, basically the Windward Islands’ bowling attack comes from St Vincent, so it means that St Vincent can bowl a team out easily for low scores,” Allen told CMC Sport. Big West Indies pacer Cameron Cuffy, backed up by his Windward Islands bowling colleagues, leg-spinner Jackson and pacers Deighton Butler and Kenroy Peters proved too much for the rivals in Dominica, and SVG played unbeaten.

They had one victory, claimed first innings points in a drawn match, and had a no-result (rain) fixture, to finish with 22 points, four clear of Grenada, with Dominica (12) third, and St Lucia bottom of the table on ten points. Jackson, who was the top spinner in the 2003 Carib Beer Series with 32 wickets, said the bowlers boosted SVG’s efforts when the batting struggled. “We didn’t really put down the kind of scores that we were looking forward to during the tournament, but we already said that any time we score any amount of runs that the bowling was going to defend it and we did that,” Jackson said.

Allen said the title success was even more satisfying because their build up was not ideal. Bad weather hampered their preparation but did not dent their self-belief. “We went into the tournament very confident because we were defending champions, despite the fact that the preparatory period was limited because we had a lot of rain prior to the tournament,” Allen said. SVG earned six selections on the Windward Islands’ 13-member squad for the 2004 Carib Beer Series — Jackson, Cuffy, Butler, Peters, batsman Romel Currency and wicket-keeper Lindon James.