BAS­SETERRE–T&T turned the ta­bles on trou­bled Lee­ward Is­lands, and were clos­ing in on a come-from-be­hind vic­to­ry on the penul­ti­mate day of their sec­ond round clash in the WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League here yes­ter­day.

Af­ter trail­ing on first in­nings, Red Force hit back strong­ly to bun­dle out the hosts for 130 in their sec­ond in­nings, and set them­selves an un­com­pli­cat­ed vic­to­ry tar­get of 203 at Warn­er Park.

At the close, they had reached 95 for two, and were re­quir­ing a fur­ther 108 to win the con­test.

Yan­nick Ot­t­ley was un­beat­en on 40 at the close and was part­nered by Ja­son Mo­hammed on 17.

The Lee­wards were right in it when they claimed open­ers Lendl Sim­mons (13) and Im­ran Khan (21) cheap­ly but Ot­t­ley and Mo­hammed stead­ied the in­nings in an un­bro­ken 53-run, third wick­et stand.

Ot­t­ley, a 23-year-old right-han­der, has hit four fours and a six off 199 balls.

Ear­li­er, leg-spin­ner Im­ran Khan snatched six for 13 as the Lee­wards, re­sum­ing on 17 with­out loss, were sent crash­ing for a mod­est to­tal.

They were 62 with­out loss but col­lapsed to lose ten wick­ets for 68 runs in a night­mare pe­ri­od on ei­ther side of lunch. They lost four wick­ets in the morn­ing to be 109 for four at the break and the re­main­ing six wick­ets then tum­bled af­ter lunch for the ad­di­tion of on­ly 21 runs.

Open­er Austin Richards top-scored with 42 off 61 de­liv­er­ies while Jah­mar Hamil­ton con­tributed 31.

It was Hamil­ton who tried to ral­ly the in­nings in a knock that came from 67 balls in 76 min­utes, with four fours. He put on 34 for the fifth wick­et with cap­tain De­von Thomas who scored 19.

The pair had pushed Lee­wards up to 121 for four but once Thomas was caught at mid-wick­et by cap­tain Rayad Em­rit off fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel, the last six wick­ets per­ished for nine runs.

Seam­er �mrit took two for 13. (CMC)

SCORE­BOARD

Lee­wards vs T&T

LEE­WARDS 1st inns 202

T&T RED FORCE 1st Inns 130

LEE­WARDS 2nd Inns (o/n 17-0)

A Richards Jr c Ot­t­ley b Khan 42

L Richard­son c Ho­sein b Khan 19

A Saun­ders lbw b Khan 1

O Pe­ters run out 9

D Thomas c Em­rit b Gabriel 19

J Hamil­ton lbw b Em­rit 30

J Tay­lor lbw b Khan 0

J Louis b Em­rit 0

Y Leonard not out 1

G Tonge c Em­rit b Khan 2

A Mar­tin c (sub) Charles b Khan 1

Ex­tras (lb2, nb4) 6

TO­TAL (all out, 58.4 overs) 130

Fall of wick­ets: 1-62, 2-65, 3-66, 4-87, 5-121, 6-126, 7-126, 8-126, 9-128, 10-130.

Bowl­ing: Gabriel 12-4-25-1, Richards 9-1-50-0, Em­rit 8-4-13-2, Im­ran Khan 11.1-6-13-6, Ho­sein 17-3-24-0, Ot­t­ley 0.3-0-0-0, Mo­hammed 1-0-3-0.

T&T RED FORCE 2nd Inns (tar­get: 203)

L Sim­mons lbw b Tonge 13

Im­ran Khan c wkp Hamil­ton b Pe­ters 21

Y Ot­t­ley not out 40

J Mo­hammed not out 17

Ex­tras (b2, w1, nb1) 4

TO­TAL (2 wk­ts, 42 overs) 95

Fall of wick­ets: 1-27, 2-42.

Bowl­ing: Tonge 4-1-15-1, Louis 6-1-19-0, Pe­ters 7-3-15-1, Mar­tin 9-2-13-0, Tay­lor 10-6-11-0, Leonard 6-0-20-0.

Po­si­tion: T&T re­quire a fur­ther 108 runs for vic­to­ry.

Um­pires: Nigel Duguid, Patrick Gus­tard.?