Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T Red Force will be bat­tling to­day to avoid los­ing their first match of the WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League, when their clash against Bar­ba­dos Pride en­ters the fi­nal day at the Queen's Park Oval.

Fol­low­ing on 264 runs be­hind, Rayad Em­rit's men closed on 165 for three–still need­ing an­oth­er 99 runs to make Bar­ba­dos bat again with sev­en wick­ets in hand.

Af­ter los­ing their fi­nal three first in­nings wick­ets for the ad­di­tion of just sev­en runs, fold­ing for 96 in re­sponse to Bar­ba­dos 360, the lo­cal men were al­ways up against it.

The pitch played well and bat­ting was not a dif­fi­cult art dur­ing the af­ter­noon. Open­ers Lendl Sim­mons and Evin Lewis looked pos­i­tive and took the score to 38, when the for­mer was un­lucky to be giv­en out, leg be­fore off Ke­mar Roach for 27.

The West In­dies fast­man went wide off the crease and an­gled one in­to Sim­mons, which ap­peared to be miss­ing the leg stick but um­pire Patrick Gus­tard thought oth­er­wise.

As the for­lorn fig­ure of Sim­mons trudged off, it looked like same old, same old but the young Yan­nick Ot­t­ley joined Lewis and they were up for a fight.

The two, who rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies at the ICC U-19 World Cup back in 2010 in New Zealand, knew enough about each oth­ers game, as they ran sen­si­bly be­tween the wick­ets, pinch­ing runs eas­i­ly. Lewis had prob­lems with his tim­ing but brought up his half cen­tu­ry nev­er­the­less, as the fight con­tin­ued.

The two added 90 runs for the sec­ond wick­et, when left arm spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can, who grabbed 4/12 in the first es­say, sent back Lewis. The Table­land left han­der was trapped leg be­fore for 61. He bat­ted for 161 min­utes, faced 120 balls and struck nine fours.

Up next was Ja­son Mo­hammed and he joined a well en­trenched Ot­t­ley at the crease. Mo­hammed who failed in the first in­nings came out guns blaz­ing and played some at­trac­tive shots which de­light­ed the hand­ful of spec­ta­tors on hand. He and Ot­t­ley took the score past the 150-run mark and just as they looked like clos­ing up shop for T&T on the day, Ot­t­ley fell in the fi­nal over.

With the clock show­ing 5.28 pm the um­pires de­cid­ed to slip in one last over in near dark­ness. Ash­ley Nurse then got Ot­t­ley to touch one to Dwayne Smith at slip for 44. He bat­ted for 166 min­utes and faced 138 balls, strik­ing six fours.

Mo­hammed left un­beat­en on the oth­er end, on 32 will come out this morn­ing look­ing to con­tin­ue the bat­tle. He has so far bat­ted for 46 min­utes, faced 40 balls and sent five to the fence and one over it.

Ear­li­er, the Red Force re­sumed on 89 for sev­en and be­fore wor­ship­pers could have said a prayer for them at Sun­day morn­ing ser­vice, they were all out for 96.

War­ri­can grabbed all three wick­ets in the space of 26 min­utes and 6.4 overs. The last two recog­nised bats­men skip­per Rayad Em­rit (2) and Im­ran Khan (15) failed to lead a re­vival and the home team fell short of the 100-run mark.

At the fall of the fi­nal wick­et, the rain came and washed out the rest of the morn­ing ses­sion and play on­ly re­sumed at 1.45 pm.

Play on the fi­nal day to­day gets un­der­way at 9.30 am.

SCORE­BOARD:

T&T Red Force vs Bar­ba­dos Pride

Bar­ba­dos 1st inns 360 all out

Red Force 1st inns (Overnight 89/7)

L Sim­mons c Smith b Roach 25

E Lewis c Dowrich b C Brath­waite 10

Y Ot­t­ley c Dowrich b C Brath­waite 3

J Mo­hammed b C Brath­waite 0

Y Car­ri­ah c Phillips b War­ri­can 26

D Ramdin b Roach 0

A Ho­sein c Hold­er b Nurse 9

I Khan c Nurse b War­ri­can 13

R Em­rit lbw War­ri­can 2

M Richards c Smith b War­ri­can 4

S Gabriel not out 1

Ex­tras nb1 1

To­tal all out 96

Fall of wk­ts: 22, 22, 34, 42, 42, 62, 84, 90, 93, 96.

Bowl­ing: K Roach 9-4-25-2, J Hold­er 9-5-17-0, C Brath­waite 12-5-13-3, A Nurse 8-0-22-1, D Smith 3-0-7-0, J War­ri­can 5.4-2-12.

Red Force 2nd inns

L Sim­mons lbw Roach 27

E Lewis lbw War­ri­can 61

Y Ot­t­ley c Smith b Nurse 44

J Mo­hammed not out 32

Ex­tras lb1 1

To­tal for 3 wk­ts 165

Fall of wk­ts: 38, 128, 165.

Bowl­ing: K Roach 8-2-24-1, J Hold­er 5-1-23-0, C Brath­waite 5-2-11-0, A Nurse 8.3-1-33-1, J War­ri­can 14-5-38-1, R Chase 8-2-25-0, J Carter 2-1-4-0, D Smith 1-1-0-0, K Brath­waite 2-1-6-0.