NAGICO-LICA Cricket One Day Tournament
Montserrat Cruise to 43-Run Win Over St Maarten.
By Rawle Nelson
In Photo seated left to right: NAGICO's Marketing Manager, Jasmine Payne; NAGICO's Managing Director, Mr. Eric Ellis; President of LICA, Mr. Gregory Shillingford and President of the St. Kitts Cricket Association, Mr. Ingleton Liburd.
Fifth round action in the 2008 Leeward Islands NAGICO Sponsored One Day cricket Competition continued at Conaree cricket ground in St Kitts with Montserrat cruising to a 43-run victory over St Maarten. The win by Montserrat is being regarded as an upset to St Maarten who despite St Maarten having prolific batting sensation Captain John Eugene failed to win their match against the Monsterratians.
The defeat has now left the St Maarten team somewhat certain of failing to make it into the final four. It was an easy win by the Montserrat team who batted sensibly and bowled and fielded very discipline thus coming out on top.
St Maarten, replying to Montserrat 215 for 7 off 50 overs, were restricted to 172 all out in 44.1 overs to give the Volcano affected island a 43-run victory.
Electing to take first strike after winning the toss, Montserrat innings were build with a superb captain s knock from Trevor Semper who made a dashing 83 from 108 deliveries. Semper s knock included eight fours and six sixes. He was well supported by Damion Whyte who had 33 runs which included five fours and one six. Mc Phearson Meade made 27 while he sent the ball to the boundary ropes four times.
The strict and disciplined bowling of St Maarten was spearheaded by Captain John Eugene who had excellent figures of ten overs with five maidens bagging three wickets for ten runs. Marlon Le Blanc also sent down ten overs however his return was 52 runs for two wickets.
The Montserrat team could have scored more however the heroic attempts of Eugene was not enough as he could only bowl ten overs. He pegged the Montserrat batsmen back with his tight and direct line bowling being on target practically with every delivery thus the return of his exceptional bowling figures. He made the going for the Montserrat team very tough but failure by his other bowlers in lending quality support made life a lot better for the Montserrat batsmen when John was not bowling.
At their turn at bat, St Maarten lost wickets steadily and their batting was a sure far cry from how they had fielded and even bowled. Only Shervin Peters with a nicely played half century demonstrated any real batting ability. His 52 saw him hammering six fours but other than Marlon Le Blanc with 30 runs that included five fours no one else added any support to the ensure a St Maarten victory.
Both Peters and Le Blanc played some superb and elegant strokes and should be commended for their valiant fight in trying to take St Maarten to victory. However, after both guys were dismissed the St Maarten batting quickly fell apart with victory in sight for Montserrat who was very elated with the two points that they gathered from the match. In the process St Maarten was pegged back by three runs outs while Captain Eugene was caught for a duck after facing three deliveries.
Bowling Montserrat to victory was Quintin Boatswain and Bryan Stephanie who both had ten overs. However, their returns were three for 29 and two for 41 respectively. The other wicket taker was Kevin Osborne with one for 45 from six overs.
Montserrat captain Semper said: "We are very excited that we have win the game and while many feel that it is an upset it isn t one for us as we have always knew that we were a better team than St Maarten. We are not going to celebrate just yet as we have another two games and we intend to win both so as to fancy our chances of getting to the semifinal stage of the competition" he believes they "... we should not be counted out just yet as with another four points to our five a lot can happen and we know the nature of cricket".
Losing Captain Eugene has once again blamed his batsmen for the defeat. "We had Montserrat struggling at one stage they recovered and made 215 but our top order just failed to set the stage for the rest of the guys. Out batting has certainly affected us throughout this competition and if we are to advance we would certainly need to improve significantly on our batting, he said.
However, with already four defeats and just a consolation win to their name St Maarten is looking ahead to their remaining two games Eugene said. "We intend to come back better and stronger with guys who are determined to go home with at least a couple of victories in St Kitts and with only two matches remaining we intend to do just that".