WICB Franchise cricket break for Christmas holidays

Dec 28, 2014 Sports

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Resumes with NAGICO Super50 on January 15

By Sean Devers

The WICB Regional Four-Day First-Class Cricket Franchise takes a break for Christmas and resumes on January 15 in Trinidad & Tobago with the NAGICO Super50 tournament and sees Guyana Jaguars, in group ‘B’ along with Barbados Pride, Combined Campuses & Colleges, and Windward Islands Volcanoes, facing the Volcanoes in their first match at the Queens Park Oval on the opening day.
Guyana Jaguars are without Skipper Leon Johnson and leading run scorer in the Four-Day format Narsingh Deonarine and are also likely to lose the services of teenagers Shemron Hetymer and Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who should both be selected for the West Indies under-19 team which joins the six Regional teams participating in the tournament. Assad Fudadin broke his finger in South Africa and could also miss the NAGICO Super50.
Chris Barnwell should Captain the team which should include another seam bowling all-rounder in Barbadian Raymond Reifer. The genuinely quick Ronsford Beaton could have medium back-up from Paul Wintz, who could also bat, while Veerasammy Permaul, Devendra Bishoo and all rounder Steven Jacobs could spearhead Guyana’s spin attack.
Rajendra Chandrika, Trevon Griffith and Robin Bacchus could be the three openers with Kandasammy Surujnarine, who could make his national senior team debut, Royston Crandon, Shiv Chanderpaul and wicketkeeper Anthony Bramble along with the All-Rounders gives the Jaguars a solid batting line up on paper.
The Jaguars play their second match against the Barbados Pride on January 17 before coming up against CCC two days later with both of these fixtures set for the Test Venue, the Queens Park Oval.
The semi-finals are scheduled for January 22 & 23 and the South American based team will be hoping to be among the ‘final four’ before the Final bowls off on Sunday January 24. The Semis and Final will all be played at the ‘Oval’.
After the first phase of the four Four-Day matches, the Jaguars are leaders with 57 points while Jamaica, who Guyana play in the next Four-Day game in Jamaica from February are second with 50 points. Barbados (44), Windward Islands (26), T&T (24) and Leeward Islands (10) follow in that order.
The Jaguars beat the Leewards by an innings & 10 runs and the Windwards by 92 runs in their first two matches before being routed for 66, chasing 69 for victory against Barbados in their three games on home soil. They then rebounded with an innings & 60 runs win against home team T&T in Trinidad.
Windward’s Devon Smith, has the Most Runs (334) with a highest score of 145 against Leewards in Grenada. Narsingh Deonarine is next with 306 runs at an average of 61.20 from six innings and included two centuries (110 not out against the Leeward and 139 against Windwards) in successive matches at Providence.
Johnson Charles, who missed the first match for the Windwards is third in the aggregate (262) including 151 against Barbados, while Jamaica’s Tamar Lambert is fourth with 223 runs and is followed by Austin Richards of the Leewards (213) and Andre Fletcher of the Windwards (203).
As expected spinners have dominated with left-arm spinner Permaul leading with 32 wickets. He has sent down 181.4 overs and has a best of 8-26 (match haul 12-101) against Barbados. In Guyana’s next match against the Windwards he registered match figures of 11-76, including 8-36 in the second innings.
Permaul’s team-mate, Devendra Bishoo, who bowled the most No-Balls (17) and Imran Khan of T&T, has 21 wickets each, while the Windward’s Alston Bobb (20), rookie Damion Jacobs (18) and Nikita Miller (17), both Jamaicans make up the top five leading wicket-takers
The Highest Total is 492-8 declared off 152.3 overs by the Jaguars against T&T at the ‘Oval’, while the Jaguars also made Lowest Innings Total when capitulated for 66 in 29.1 overs against Barbados to lose by two runs.
The most runs in a match was 948 at Arnos Vale in St Vincent when Barbados (352 and 128) defeated Windwards (274 and 195) by 11 runs in a pulsating finish. In that game, Bajan, Omar Phillips, standing at the non-striker’s end, was hit on the back of his helmet from a powerful drive from Shai Hope which knocked him unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital and did not participate in the remainder of the match after he was forced to retire hurt.
Eight centuries were scored by seven batsmen with Deonarine making two of them. Bajan Skipper Kraigg Brathwaite (182) against T&T has the highest score.
The other century makers are Johnson Charles (151), Devon Smith (145), Vishal Singh (141), Deonarine (139 & 100*), Bajan Roston Chase (120*) and Orlando Peters of the Leewards (104). Thirty-five (35) Half-centuries were scored.
There were ten century partnerships with the highest being 176 between Kraigg Brathwaite and Shane Dowrich for the fifth wicket for Barbados against T&T.

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