Canada Under-19’s take on Jamaica Under-19’s in the WICB Under-19 50-over tournament Saturday, July 25, 2015). Canada U19’s sat out the second round of games played on Thursday following an opening round loss to Windward Islands U19s. Interestingly, Jamaica played and lost to the Windwards on Thursday.
Windwards U19s was bowled out by Jamaica for 227 after 49/2 overs. The top three Windwards batters each made between 22 and 36. Dornan Edward, batting at number eight, hit 61 from 57 balls that helped carry his team to 227. Michael Frew took 4/30 from 9.2 overs. Three of Frew’s wickets came late in the innings.
Jamaica’s innings ticked along to 62/4 and progressed to 89/5 with Brad Brown on 30. At this point, Brown was run out and Jamaica’s 89/6 soon become 99 all out and the Windwards had won by 128 runs. Ryan John took 4/16 from 7.3 overs.
Trinidad & Tobago Under-19’s coach had spoken of his squad’s mental preparations and was looking to see his “team being able to read and control the movement of the game”, according to an article from Newsday, posted on the WICB website. Bad weather had limited his squad’s practice playing sessions, so some might think the chance to show mental strength and seize the game existed with Guyana U19’s on 61/5 after 18 overs chasing T&T’s 154/8 (50 overs) on Thursday.
It has also been damp in Guyana, based on a media release about some changes of grounds for the WICB Under-15 regional championship that starts today (Friday, July 24) in Guyana. The mental strength in the T&T v Guyana U19 game seemed to come from the Guyanese as opening bat Imlach battled away to make 61* and, eventually, control the movement of the game to become a win for Guyana. Imlach took part in stands of 55 for the sixth wicket with Ramdhan (27), then 32 for the seventh wicket Baldeo (11) and was still batting as Guyana reached a winning 157/7 after 37 overs.
In Thursday’s other game, Barbados U19’s scored 204 all out (48.4 overs) and beat the Leeward Islands by 16 runs.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how Canada performs against hosts Jamaica at St Elizabeth’s Technical High School Saturday. The hosts will, doubtless, be under pressure to win but it would be really encouraging if Canada could show both playing and mental strength on the path towards the 2016 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh. (EN)