JAMAICA BACK IN CONTENTION AFTER NINE-WICKET WIN

Nov 18, 2008 Sports

-Pick up two vital bonus points

GCB VP Malcolm Peters hands trophy to Andrew Richardson.

After losing to Barbados in their opening fixture and then having to share a point each with the USA in an abandoned game, defending champions Jamaica eventually got the desired result with a nine-wicket wallop of Canada, at the GCC ground, Bourda.

When pacer and subsequent Man-of-the- Match Andrew Richardson reduced Canada to 104 all out in 36.5 of the 50 allotted overs nearly half an hour before the scheduled lunch break, a Jamaica victory was never in doubt.

Despite losing opener Horace Miller (15) with the total on 27, Brenton Parchment (50*) and Dave Bernard Jr. clobbered the Canadians to all parts of the Bourda sward to guarantee an outright win and two bonus points to set up a potentially intriguing clash against Guyana tomorrow at the National Stadium where the winner could be one of the semi-finalists. They ended on 108-1 in 20.5 overs.

Parchment hit 5 fours and 1 six off 59 balls, while Bernard’s innings contained a similar amount of boundaries and a solitary six off 43 deliveries.

When play commenced 15 minutes late due to a decision taken by umpires Vincent Bullen and Goland Greaves to allow a few parts of the outfield to dry a little more, Canada got off to a positive start with openers Sandeep Jyoti and Abdool Samad taking the score to 25, before Samad (15) nicked a rising delivery from Richardson to wicketkeeper Keith Hibbert. He stroked three glorious fours in his brief innings.

Qaiser Ali, the new batsman failed to trouble the scorers, edging Richardson’s next delivery for Hibbert to pick up his second catch behind the stumps as Canada slipped to 25-2 after 6 overs.

In came Zubin Surkari to partner Jyoti and in the same over the former offered a low difficult chance to Hibbert, but this time the wicketkeeper failed to hold on.

They proceeded to add a further 14 runs, before Richardson, who was getting some amount of lateral movement induced another false stroke from Surkari (8), but this time Hibbert made no mistake, clinging to a waist high chance off the edge of the bat.

Ashif Mulla strode to the wicket to join the rock solid Jyoti, but by this time the Jamaicans bowlers were miserly in their bowling and runs came far and few and when the total reached 40, Mulla (1) gave Hibbert his fourth catch behind the wicket off the off-spinner Devon Brown’s bowling, leaving Canada 40-4.

Sunil Dhaniram came next and he took the attack to the Jamaican bowlers, while Jyoti continued to play sedately more content on occupying the crease than scoring runs.

He, however, was the next to go, failing to make his ground after turning for a third run and Lorenzo Ingram’s pinpoint accurate return to Hibbert allowed the keeper to break the stumps with the batsman well short of his cease.

After that it was a steady procession back to the pavilion, first Dhaniram (24), who was the eventual top-scorer provided Danza Hyatt with a regulation catch off leg-spinner Gavin Wallace’s bowling.

Two wickets fell in succession, first it was Umar Bhatti (0), who was caught behind off Brown and then Jethni (0) held out to Brown at long-on off Ingram’s off-spin.

Harvir Baidwan and Khurram Chohan posted another seven runs together, before the ninth wicket fell that of Baidwan, who was snapped up by Hyatt off Richardson for 4 and then last man Eion Katchay after hitting a superb off drive to the boundary gave Hibbert his sixth dismissal off Wallace when on 13 to end the innings.
Chotan was left high and dry on 17.

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