Thrilling finish to a wonderful tournament

Tony Becca, Contributor

Twenty20 cricket is not Test cricket. There are times, however, when it can be just as exciting, sometimes really exciting, and the West Indies Cricket Board's regional Caribbean T20 tournament which ended in Port-of-Spain two Saturdays ago was one of those occasions.

It was jam-packed with excitement. In spite of Jamaica's poor performance, the tournament was particularly exciting when the big four - Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana - met at Queen's Park Oval, and especially so when Guyana knocked out favourites Trinidad and Tobago in the semi-finals.

The most exciting actions in the tournament, however, were when the Leeward Islands held Barbados to a tie before losing their first-round match; when Guyana knocked out Trinidad and Tobago; and when, to the surprise of many, Guyana, probably the least fancied of the four at the start of the tournament, went on to win the prize with one wicket in hand and only one delivery to go.

Not only did Guyana win the tournament and a place in the Champions League in South Africa, but they also did it in fine style.

In a thrilling finish which no one, barring a diehard Guyanese, could reasonably have expected, Guyana, already in the grave, stepped out of the hole to cover themselves in glory.

Chasing a victory target of 135, Guyana appeared on the way at 62 for two after 12 overs. Suddenly, however, they were on the skids, and in 6.1 overs, they were tottering on the brink of defeat at 109 for nine.

With 26 runs needed for victory, with 11 deliveries to go, and with only one wicket in hand, Guyana appeared dead and just waiting to be buried.

The manager and coaches of Barbados, Desmond Haynes, Vasbert Drakes, and Emerson Trotman, were caught on camera smiling beyond the boundary. No doubt they were just awaiting the last rite before celebrating, and so, too, the Barbados players.

Feather in Guyana's cap

Batting for Guyana, however, was a teenager, a 19-year-old youngster named Jonathan Foo. He had arrived at the wicket at 72 for five after 14 overs; he had already blasted a few deliveries to the boundary rope and over the rope, and with fortune favouring him when, at 117 for nine, he smashed off-spinner Ashley Nurse towards Larry Babb at long on and the ball bounced out of the fielder's hands and over the boundary for six, he proceeded to blast Guyana to victory with one delivery to spare.

Eleven runs were needed for victory off the final over, and with Foo hitting the first two for boundaries, the match ended almost in an anticlimax.

In any kind of cricket it was an innings to remember, an innings that won a match which, to almost everyone, cricketer or not, was already lost when he entered the action.

Batting for a mere 17 deliveries, Foo, the find of the tournament, smashed four fours and three sixes in a memorable 42 not out.

That was a fitting finale to a wonderful tournament attended by good crowds, especially so in Port-of-Spain. Congratulations to president Dr Julian Hunte and the members of the West Indies Cricket Board, to the board's CEO, Dr Ernest Hilaire, and the members of his staff for putting on a wonderful event.

While Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago played well and showed that they deserved a place in the semi-finals, Jamaica, one of the early favourites, did not play so well.

In fact, after defeating the Leeward Islands, as expected, by nine wickets, and after jumping past Canada, as expected, also by nine wickets, Jamaica lost their next three matches and, but for the bowling of left-arm pacer Krishmar Santokie and batsman Danza Hyatt, in one innings, they were embarrassing, at least to their fans at home.

After Trinidad and Tobago had recovered to 157 for seven off 18 overs, Jamaica lost their third match in the preliminary round when they stumbled to 53 for five and folded for 108.

After crawling to 52 for three in 13 overs and recovering to 153 for nine, Jamaica lost to Barbados, who won the semi-final match with six wickets in hand and one over to spare.

After limping to 94 for seven of the allotted 14 overs, Jamaica lost easily to Trinidad and Tobago, 89 without loss in 10.1 overs under the Duckworth/Lewis scoring system, in the third-place play-off match.

The question is: what happened to what appeared, comparatively speaking, a powerful team?

In hindsight, it may be that in the selection of Wavell Hinds, and especially so with Tamar Lambert as the captain and therefore in the starting 11, the selectors got it wrong.

While that may have been so, however, that was not the problem, or any one of the problems.

The event, it should be remembered, was a short, quick-fire Twenty20 tournament. Some batsmen are natural hitters of the ball, some are elegant stroke players, some need the adrenaline to be flowing before going on the attack, and one of the problems may well have been the decision to select Marlon Samuels in the team so quickly after an absence of two years from competitive cricket.

Another problem is the attitude of Jamaica, and the West Indies, of packing the team with batsmen and of going into a match without a full complement of bowlers.

Jamaica went into the matches, all but one of the two in which Christopher Gayle was absent due to injury, with a top-heavy team - with batting down to number eight, plus Andre Russell at number nine.

In a Twenty20 match, a match lasting 20 overs a side, Jamaica's batting order read, Gayle and Xavier Marshall, Samuels, Hyatt, Hinds, Lambert, David Bernard Jr, and Carlton Baugh Jr, plus Russell - the man who is considered an all-rounder and who probably got into the team as a bowler over Andrew Richardson because of his ability to hit the ball.

Averages

Lest it be not known, in terms of averages, Baugh, with 36.11, stands behind only Gayle as the country's most successful batsman, and when it comes to centuries scored, Baugh with 11, is third behind Gayle and Hinds.

In Twenty20 cricket where each bowler is limited to four overs, there is need for five bowlers, and yet Jamaica went in with Bernard, Russell, Santokie, and Nikita Miller, plus part-timers Gayle and Lambert.

And still another problem is that although Jamaica lost three matches, all in a row and all against the better teams in the competition, the team, but for the injury to Gayle, and with fast bowler Richardson and Odean Brown in the squad, remained unchanged throughout.

With Jamaica in trouble from the start in all three matches, Baugh batted as early as number five, sometimes Russell batted early, and it probably would have served Jamaica better had the tour selectors left out one of the batsmen and played another bowler.

Who to tell, the fortunes of Jamaica might have been different had the selectors included another bowler, preferably a slow bowler, in the 11.