Vin­ode Mam­chan

While the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty was be­ing plas­tered in red cel­e­brat­ing the Phag­wa fes­tiv­i­ties yes­ter­day, the na­tion­al crick­eters were al­so see­ing red at the Queen's Park Oval. But it was no cel­e­bra­tion. T&T will go in­to to­day's fi­nal day of their re­gion­al first class clash against Ja­maica fac­ing an up­hill bat­tle to avoid de­feat.

Yes­ter­day, they were bun­dled out for 143 in their first in­nings and al­though Aniel Kan­hai 4/17 and Im­ran Khan 4/34 brought them back in­to the game by bowl­ing out the Ja­maicans for 157–it will take a re­mark­able ef­fort from the lo­cal team bats­men to­day to get the 305 runs need­ed to win. Scores: Ja­maica 290 & 157 vs T&T 143.

Ja­maica start­ed their sec­ond in­nings 147 runs in the cred­it and made an aw­ful start los­ing open­er Dan­za Hy­att to skip­per Rayad Em­rit for a 'duck.' When Bren­ton Parch­ment (11) al­so de­part­ed with the score on 23, one sensed that T&T bowlers were work­ing hard to bring their team back in­to the game. Bren­dan Nash and Dono­van Pagon stemmed the tide, adding 65 for the third wick­et be­fore leg-spin­ner Im­ran Khan sent back both. He dis­missed Nash (30) and re­moved Pagon for a well com­posed 51 as Ja­maica stum­bled to 103 for four. Part time off-spin­ner Aneil Kan­hai un­der­mined the mid­dle or­der get­ting rid of Tamar Lam­bert (14), Ho­race Miller (0), Dave Bernard Jnr (27) and Niki­ta Miller (8) be­fore Khan re­turned to wrap up the in­nings, re­mov­ing An­drew Richard­son (12) and Odean Brown (0).

The Ja­maicans were with­out first in­nings top-scor­er Carl­ton Baugh, who flew out of Trinidad on Sat­ur­day night to re­place an in­jured De­nesh Ramdin in Bar­ba­dos for the first three one day in­ter­na­tion­als against the vis­it­ing Aus­tralians. Ear­li­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­sumed on 89 for five and could not em­u­late the low or­der fight-back which was the hall­mark of the Ja­maican first in­nings. The mo­hawk hair-styled Miller would have none of that grab­bing 4-40 as T&T fell for 143. Kan­hai made 28, Coop­er 19 and it was left to wick­et­keep­er Gibran Mo­hammed with an un­beat­en 23 to stretch the score be­yond the fol­low-on point of 141. Play gets un­der­way at 9.30 am.

SCORE­BOARD

TT vs Ja­maica

Ja­maica inns 290

T&T inns

(overnight 89/5)

J Guillen c Brown b Richard­son 0

I Khan c Brown b Miller 14

M Bar­clay c Baugh b Richard­son 6

J Mo­hammed c Baugh b Cot­terell 22

A Kan­hai c H Miller b Bernard 28

S Gan­ga c Hy­att b Cot­terell 1

K Coop­er c Cot­terell b Miller 19

R Em­rit c Lam­bert b Miller 9

G Mo­hammed not out 23

K Kan­tas­ingh lbw Miller 2

S Gabriel c Lam­bert b Brown 3

Ex­tras: b 7, w1, nb8 16

To­tal all out 143

Fall of wk­ts: 0, 11, 49, 49, 52, 94, 114, 124, 128, 143.

Bowl­ing: A Richard­son 7.2-1-19-2 (1w), S Cot­terell 10.4-2-35-2 (8nb), N Miller 31-13-40-4, O Brown 12-4-26-1, D Bernard 8-2-16-1.

Ja­maica 2nd inns

B Parch­ment b Gabriel 11

D Hy­att lbw Em­rit 0

D Pagon b Khan 51

B Nash lbw Khan 30

T Lam­bert c Coop­er b Kan­hai 14

H Miller c Kan­tas­ingh b Kan­hai 0

D Bernard c Coop­er b Kan­hai 27

N Miller c & b Kan­hai 8

A Richard­son c Bar­clay b Khan 12

O Brown c lbw b Khan 0

S Cot­terell not out 2

Ex­tras: 2nb 2

To­tal all out 157

Fall of wk­ts: 1, 23, 88, 103, 112, 114, 138, 147, 154, 157.

Bowl­ing: S Gabriel 7-0-26-1 (2nb), R Em­rit 9-0-33-1, K Kan­tas­ingh 17-8-34-0, I Khan 11.3-1-34-4, A Kan­hai 10-4-17-4.