Trinidad and To­ba­go’s women’s un­der-19 crick­et team se­cured a state­ment win over Bar­ba­dos in their fi­nal round-robin match of the Crick­et West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship at the Coolidge Crick­et Ground in An­tigua on Fri­day.

T&T’s 84-run win against the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons came in a dress re­hearsal in the fifth and fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary round match, with the two teams set to meet again in the tour­na­ment fi­nal at the same venue from 2 pm on sat­ur­day.

Bar­ba­dos’ de­ci­sion to in­sert the young Red Force Di­vas was one they would soon re­gret. Open­ers Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal and cap­tain Sama­ra Ram­nath put on 32 for the first wick­et be­fore Ram­ta­hal was dis­missed for 12 from 13 balls at the end of the fourth over, flick­ing a catch to Thean­ny Her­bert-May­ers at short fine leg off Zoe Mc­Cal­lis­ter’s bowl­ing.

T&T would lose five more wick­ets along the way, but Ram­nath car­ried her bat to en­sure that the dam­age caused by the Bar­ba­di­an bowlers was min­i­mal. When T&T closed on 132 for six from a full com­ple­ment of 20 overs, Ram­nath end­ed up un­beat­en with a top score of 56 from 53 balls, in­clud­ing six fours. Jes­si­ca Davis’ 15 from 13 de­liv­er­ies was T&T’s next best con­tri­bu­tion, while the best bowl­ing fig­ures for Bar­ba­dos was Camia Matthew-Brome’s three for 17 from three overs.

If the bat­ting laid the foun­da­tion, T&T’s bowlers cap­i­tal­ized on it by bowl­ing their op­po­nents out for 48 from 18.4 overs.

Led by Shriya Jairam, who col­lect­ed three wick­ets for eight runs from four overs, and Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran, who took two for five from 3.4, the young Di­vas dev­as­tat­ed the Ba­jans.

Bar­ba­dos’ his­to­ry-mak­ing open­er Eboni Brath­waite had al­ready stroked one four and one six by the time Ram­ta­hal bowled her with the first ball of the sec­ond over of the de­fense. Brath­waite, who struck a record num­ber of runs with a vi­cious knock against the Lee­ward Is­lands, was a key play­er in the match. a vi­cious knock against the Lee­ward Is­lands Un­der-19 women on Tues­day were on­ly able to con­tribute 11 from sev­en balls against T&T, which was a top score.

From there, the T&T bowlers picked up wick­ets reg­u­lar­ly to lim­it the cham­pi­ons and seal the mas­sive win.

T&T end­ed the round-robin leg of the tour­na­ment with five wins from five match­es and a per­fect 20 points, while Bar­ba­dos, who were al­so un­beat­en head­ing in­to yes­ter­day’s clash with three wins and one no re­sult, end­ed up sec­ond in the stand­ings with 14 points.

It means both teams will clash again in to­day’s fi­nal from 2 pm to de­cide which of them will be leav­ing with the ti­tle. Be­fore that, Ja­maica’s Un­der-19 women (12 points) and the Lee­wards (8 pts) will clash in the third-place play-off at 9 am, al­so at Coolidge. At 10 am, the Wind­ward Is­lands Un­der-19 women (4 pts) and Guyana Un­der-19 women (2 pts) will play in the fifth-place play­off at Lib­er­ta.

Sum­marised Scores

T&T U19 132/6 (S. Ram­nath 56, J. Davis 15; C. Matthew-Brome 3/17) vs Bar­ba­dos U19 (E. Brath­waite 11; S. Jairam 3/8, B. Har­richa­ran 2/5)

T&T U19 won by 84 runs