KINGSTOWN – Chinelle Hen­ry hit an even, un­beat­en cen­tu­ry, the first of this year’s Women’s T20 Blaze, as de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Ja­maica Women crushed Bar­ba­dos Women by 62 runs in St Vin­cent on Wednes­day.

Hen­ry’s hero­ics helped Ja­maica re­cov­er from 11-3 to post a com­pet­i­tive 149 for five from their 20 overs at the Arnos Vale Play­ing Field.

Need­ing to score at just over sev­en runs an over, Bar­ba­dos Women were nev­er up to the task and at the end of their 20 overs they had limped to 87 for four to fall to their fourth straight de­feat.

Bar­ba­dos Women start­ed pos­i­tive­ly af­ter Ja­maica elect­ed to bat first with pac­er Shamil­ia Con­nell dis­miss­ing Jo­di­an Mor­gan, Chedean Na­tion and Abi­gail Bryce ear­ly on.

But Hen­ry re­vived the in­nings in a 70-run part­ner­ship with open­er Rasha­da Williams, who scored a pa­tient 25 from 42 de­liv­er­ies.

And when Williams and Ke­neshia Fer­ron per­ished to leave the score 105 for five in the 17th over, Hen­ry dom­i­nat­ed an un­bro­ken 44-run stand with Lena Scott, who con­tributed just three runs.

Hen­ry blud­geoned off spin­ner Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch for 29 runs in the penul­ti­mate over, hit­ting her for five con­sec­u­tive bound­aries to move in­to the 90s.

She then got to her cen­tu­ry of the very last ball of the in­nings, by scam­per­ing two runs off the bowl­ing of Con­nell.

In all, Hen­ry faced 49 balls and struck eight six­es and six fours.

Con­nell was Bar­ba­dos’ best bowler, tak­ing 3-14.

Bar­ba­dos’ bat­ters then strug­gled to get the ball off the square in an unim­pres­sive run chase.

De­spite los­ing just four wick­ets, they nev­er threat­ened the tar­get with Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch scor­ing a laboured 35 off 56 balls, while Asabi Cal­len­der’s un­beat­en knock of 30 re­quired 46 balls.

Neisha-Ann Wai­some took 2-10 for Ja­maica Women.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

JA­MAICA WOMEN 149-5 in 20 overs (Chinelle Hen­ry 100 not out, Rasha­da Williams 25; Shamil­ia Con­nell 3-14) vs BAR­BA­DOS WOMEN 87-4 in 20 overs (Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch 35, Asabi Cal­len­der 30 not out; Neisha-Ann Wai­some 2-10).

Ja­maica Women won by 62 runs.