Legspinner Samuel Badree took two for nine in four miserly overs while skipper Denesh Ramdin made a patient 33 not out as T&T beat Jamaica by six wickets to win the final of the Twenty20 for 50 Cricket Festival at the Queen's Park Oval on Sunday night. In front of a packed house including Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the free spirited local batsman Jason Mohammed pulled spinner Nikita Miller on to the second floor of the Carib Stand with seven balls to spare to secure the $25,000 US top prize for the Red Force. After Jamaica won the toss and elected to bat, Badree had given the home team the upper hand in the first over when opener Nkrumah Bonner edged him to keeper Ramdin for one. The resulting Mexican wave was still in effect when Navin Stewart clean bowled Damion Jacobs (2) in the fourth over, leaving them 14 for two. The Jamaicans struggled to get going against some tidy bowling and lost danger man Xavier Marshall (2), bowled by Badree, with the score on 28 in the seventh.
After conceding just one off his first over, crowd favourite Dave Mohammed conspired with Ramdin to remove captain Tamar Lambert, stumped for 24, and later Dave Bernard, caught behind for two, to put T&T in total control at 44 for five. Mohammed (D) would have had another wicket had Jason Mohammed not dropped a difficult chance from Andre McCarthy on the long off boundary, which bounced out of his grip for six. While Jamie Merchant (9) and Horace Miller (2) came and went, McCarthy remained defiant as he pushed the Jamaicans toward a respectable total. Joined by Nikita Miller at 68 for seven, they added an unbroken 46 for the eighth wicket off 30 balls. In a moment of controversy, McCarthy trod on to his stumps after slapping Lendl Simmons for six but was given the green light by the third umpire, who determined that he had already completed the shot. Finding the gaps with precision timing, the former West Indies Under 19 player belted four fours and two sixes on his way to an unbeaten 54 off 39 balls as Jamaican finished on 114 for seven.
Local openers Simmons (14) and William Perkins (10) got the crowd going with a brief flurry of powerful shots, though they both got carried against energetic medium pacer Bernard, who also got number three Evin Lewis to edge to first slip for a second ball duck. That brought together Ramdin and Darren Bravo, who went into survival mode with little emphasis on adventurous stroke play. From 25 for three in the fifth over, they rebuilt the innings at a sedate pace as they inched toward the approaching target. Ramdin was caught off a no ball off Andre Richardson in the 11th and was later put down to a diving effort in the outfield off Merchant, but he remained unfazed. At the completion of the 14th over, and with T&T at 69 for three, the game was delayed for 21 minutes when the floodlights at the North East end of the ground went off. Needing another 46 from 36 upon the resumption, Bravo hit Miller four sixes in consecutive overs, but going for a third, was brilliantly caught by a diving Richardson for 33 (32) at long on. The visibly annoyed left hander was replaced by Jason Mohammed, whose unbeaten 14 off eight balls helped see the Red Force home with more than an over to spare.
SCOREBOARD
Jamaica Innings
N. Bonner c Ramdin
b Badree 1
D. Jacobs b Stewart 2
T. Lambert st Ramdin
b D. Mohammed 24
X. Marshall b Badree 2
A. McCarthy not out 54
D. Bernard c Ramdin
b D. Mohammed 2
J. Merchant b Cooper 9
H. Miller b Simmons 2
N. Miller not out 12
Extras (w5, lb1) 6
Total (20 overs; 7 wickets) 114
FOW: 1-2 (Bonner, 0.4 ov), 2-14 (Jacobs, 3.3 ov), 3-28 (Marshall, 6.4 ov), 4-34 (Lambert, 9.1), 5-44 (Bernard, 11.4 ov), 6-65 (Merchant, 14.1), 7-68 (H. Miller, 15.1)
Bowling: Badree 4-0-9-2, Stewart 3-0-20-1, Cooper 4-0-23-1, D. Mohammed 3-0-14-2, Ganga 4-0-22-0, Simmons 2-0-25-1
T&T Innings
L. Simmons b Bernard 14
W. Perkins LBW Bernard 10
E. Lewis c Lambert
b Bernard 0
D. Bravo c Richardson
b N. Miller 33
D. Ramdin not out 33
J. Mohammed not out 14
Extras (lb4, w5, nb2) 11
Total (18.5 overs, 4 wkts) 115
FOW: 1-22 (Simmons, 3.3 ov), 2-22 (Lewis, 3.5 ov), 3-25 (Perkins, 5.1), 4-95 (Bravo, 16.5 ov)
Bowling: Santokie 4-0-23-0, Bernard 3-0-16-3, N Miller 3.5-0-34-1, Richardson 4-0-15-0, Merchant 4-0-23-0.
Result: T&T won by six wickets.
Man-of-the-Match: Samuel Badree.
