Vin­ode Mam­chan

Yes­ter­day morn­ing the au­thor­i­ties here were search­ing for Chris Gayle's crick­et bag and hours af­ter the Com­bined Cam­pus­es and Col­leges (CCC) would have wished they did not lo­cate it be­cause the hur­ri­cane bats­man banged 85 to lead Ja­maica to a sev­en-wick­et vic­to­ry and place in tonight's play-off.

SCORES: CCC 150/5 (20) vs Ja­maica 151/3 (20.4).

Af­ter a good ef­fort with the bat by the stu­dents in scor­ing 150 runs for five wick­ets in 20 overs, the Ja­maicans took to the crease and nev­er looked un­der pres­sure. Gayle was on sound from ear­ly on and ham­mered left arm spin­ner Derone Davis for two six­es and two fours in one over to sig­nal his in­ten­tions. Davis would be hav­ing night­mares about Gayle be­cause he took 31 runs from the eight de­liv­er­ies he faced from him.

Gayle's open­ing part­ner Dave Bernard was al­so in good form but was un­recog­nis­able at the crease with Gayle on fire. He fi­nal­ly fell for 23 in an open­ing stand of 75 which came in just sev­en overs.

Af­ter that Gayle just con­tin­ued his ball beat­ing and struck some of the biggest six­es in this tour­na­ment. He had the crowd be­hind him and they were dis­ap­point­ed when he fi­nal­ly de­part­ed for 85 in an over when he struck two six­es off Ryan Austin.

His in­nings spanned 44 balls and he struck nine six­es and four fours. Af­ter his dis­missal, Ja­maica was left with the easy task of get­ting 13 runs from 38 balls, which they du­ly got, al­though Dan­za Hy­att fell for a duck. At the end Nkrumah Bon­ner was left un­beat­en on 28.

Ear­li­er, the high­ly tout­ed Ja­maican open­ing pair of Kr­ish­ma San­tok­ie and Shel­don Cot­ter­rell were tak­en apart by the CCC open­ers Chad­wick Wal­ton and Ray­mond Reifer. It was Wal­ton who got out the blocks first and was teach­ing his coun­try­men a les­son in quick scor­ing. He romped to 23 off 19 balls and hit the ropes fives times. At the fall of his wick­et Reifer took over and played some au­da­cious shots much to the sur­prise of this crowd who would have seen him strug­gle in the tour­na­ment thus far.

Yes­ter­day he looked a dif­fer­ent play­er and worked his way to 37 off just 31 balls with three meaty blows that land­ed in the stands. Coach Floyd Reifer was next in and met a red hot skip­per in Kyle Corbin. The pint-sized right han­der be­lied his stature and slammed the bowl­ing to all parts of the ground.

He had the men in yel­low on the run and was un­for­tu­nate­ly run out three short of a half cen­tu­ry. He faced 32 balls and slammed five six­es. At the fall of his wick­et, the mo­mem­tum went and the CCC did not re­alise the amount of runs they would have liked in the clos­ing overs, get­ting 19 in the last three. Spin­ner Niki­ta Miller was the best of the Ja­maican bowlers tak­ing 2/26.

SCORE­BOARD

Ja­maica vs CCC

CCC inns

C Wal­ton c Miller b Bernard 23

R Reifer c Rus­sell b Miller 37

K Corbin run out 47

F Reifer b Cot­ter­rell 17

A De­war b Miller 7

R Wig­gins not out 5

J Hold­er not out 3

Ex­tras b4, lb4, w3 11

To­tal 5 wk­ts (20) 150

Fall of wk­ts: 31, 90, 118, 131, 144.

Bowl­ing: K San­tok­ie 4-0-25-0, S Cot­ter­rell 4-0-31-1, D Bernard 2-0-13-1, A Rus­sell 4-0-27-0, N Miller 4-0-26-2, Y El­liot 1-0-11-0, T Lam­bert 1-0-9-0.

Ja­maica inns

C Gayle c Hold­er b Austin 85

D Bernard c Davis b Mc­Clean 24

N Bon­ner not out 28

D Hy­att c Corbin b Mc­CLean 0

T Lam­bert not out 3

Ex­tras lb2, w7, nb2 11

To­tal 3 wk­ts (16.4ovs) 151

Fall of wk­ts: 75, 138, 143.

Bowl­ing: J Hold­er 3-0-15-0, D Davis 2.4-0-34-0, R Austin 3-0-36-1, R Reifer 1-0-14-0, K Mc­CLean 4-0-23-2, A De­war 3-0-27-0.

Re­sult: Ja­maica won by 7 wk­ts - qual­i­fies for play-off.

Star of match: Chris Gayle.