NAGICO-LICA Cricket One Day Tournament
St Maarten Wins But Fails to Make Semifinal.
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.
Despite a seventeen run victory over USVI St Maarten has failed to advance to the semifinal of the 2008 Leeward Islands Cricket Association NAGICO Sponsored One Day competition.
The sixth round match which saw St Maarten playing against USVI at the Edgar Gilbert Sporting Complex saw the semifinal host winning the toss and batting first. In yet another batting collapse by the St Maarten team who has been superb in almost every other department except their batting making 174 all out in 44. 2 overs.
Leading the way was Moreland Le Blanc with an unbeaten 54 while Captain John Eugene who has been failing to nick with the bat stroked 32. Lyndel Bondelle and Sheldon Le Blanc made 26 and 22 respectively.
The bowling for USVI was spearheaded by Sherville Huggins two for 22 while Calvin Lewis and Andrew Eusebe each had two for 31 and 43.
Replying to a relatively low score the USVI who has been camping out with a young team in this year’s competition was bowled out for 157 in 48.3 overs handing St Maarten its second win of the tournament.
Austin Leshawn made 72 in a valiant effort with only Sherville Huggins making adding any support with 25. John Eugene who has had a better performance this year with the ball rather than the bat captured two for 17 and St Maarten’s top scorer Moreland LeBlanc snapped up two for 31 thus ensuring that his team sealed the well deserving victory.
Commenting on his team’s victory Eugene said that his team took too long to shine thus the reason for only two victories so far in the tournament. “We allowed a lot of chances to slip by and unfortunately it’s evident that our semifinal chances have ended,” Eugene said.
The St Maarten star batsman said that the learning experiences that they have gained from this year’s tournament will benefit his players in next year’s tournament. “We have experimented on a batch of young players and we have seen the fruits of our efforts as the experience will certainly boost their opportunities in future tournaments. St Maarten is a very strong team and I am confident that we will go out with another victory thus ending our one day campaign on a positive note,” Eugene said.
Meanwhile, a very disappointed Austin Leshawn said that his team failed to play to the appropriate game plan thus resulting in them loosing the match. “This was certainly not a difficult game to win and had we capitalize on the opportunities that had presented itself we would have won the match,” he said.
Leshawn is however optimistic that USVI will win their last match in this year’s tournament thus giving them a well deserved consolation victory. “We have smell victory at least on two occasions and have thrown it away through poor batting and I want to tell you that the guys will return to the drawing board where we will attempt at making amends for our failures in this year’s competition.
"I am however satisfied with the contributions made by NAGICO and the execution of the tournament by LICA in assisting to develop cricket in the Leeward Islands,” he concluded.
St Marten is standing currently on four points from six matches wit tow wins and four looses. BVI has only two points from one win and five losses, both teams have one remaining game.