Intriguing battle at the Oval

TRINIDAD AND Tobago and the Windward Islands were locked in an intriguing battle after the first day of the Carib Beer Series regional cricket match at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

The Windwards yesterday closed the opening day of the fourth round clash on 24 for two  wickets — in reply to Trinidad and Tobago first innings of 203. In their turn at the crease Windwards were in immediate trouble losing Romel Currency for five and Roland Wilkinson without scoring to slip to ten for two. Opener Devon Smith with 17 not out and Andre Fletcher who is yet to score will carry the fight to the homesters on the second day today when play resumes at 9.30 am. Earlier, TT won the toss and skipper Imran Jan opted to take first strike on a wicket that required patience to score runs but the local batsmen showed little of this quality. As a result there was a steady stream of batsmen to and from the pavilion as pacer Darren Sammy with the excellent figures of five for 37 and veteran Cameron Cuffy (four for 32) proved very difficult to handle in the circumstances.

Jan was the first to go without scoring as Cuffy induced an edge for Junior Murray behind the stumps. Earnil Ryan, in his second match and Sherwin Ganga, on debut, battled bravely if not spectacularly to post 47 runs for the second wicket. Ryan, who had to fight very hard for his runs, was eventually dismissed for 21. Dwayne Bravo who has been enjoying a prolific season with bat and ball was next in and together with Ganga carried the score to 83. Ganga played some enterprising shots in a fighting innings of 37 when Fernix Thomas found the edge of his tentative bat and sent him back. The off-form Aneil Kanhai stepped up to join Bravo and saw his more illustrious partner strike leg-spinner for a six and two fours in three balls. However soon after, he drove loosely outside his off stump and was snapped up by Smith for 46.

Bravo faced 83 balls in 109 minutes and struck five fours and two sixes. His innings was the last fans had to cheer about as apart from a scratchy 30 from Kanhai the others surrendered meekly. Only the last wicket pair of Marlon Black and Amit Jaggernauth added an invaluable 28 runs for the last wicket, with the latter scoring an unbeaten 17. Manager Omar Khan said after the day’s play that if the earlier batsmen has played the way Black and Jaggernauth played, TT would have been in a much better position.  “Our frontline batsmen need to put in their heads that they must work hard for their runs. They have to be willing to go out there and fight tooth and nail. The last pair showed how it should have been done. “However having said this, I think we have the bowling resources to restrict them to under 150 runs and go on to win this match in three days,” Khan said.