No doubt you are familiar with the old saying “There’s no place like home.” Try telling that to the St Lucia side, that played in the recently concluded Winlott Inc Windward Islands T20 at the Beausejour Cricket Ground.
There was no home field advantage for St Lucia. In fact it may have been the opposite. They finished dead last in the four team competition-not having won any of their matches including Sunday’s Third Place Off against Grenada. In that encounter, Grenada scored 175 in their allotted 20 overs. In reply St Lucia was bowled out for 114 in 18.4 overs.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, St Vincent won the competition winning all their games against St Lucia, Dominica and Grenada in the preliminary round, then went on to win the championship game against Dominica.
Runs were hard to come by in Sunday’s final, as St Vincent taking first knock scored 98 for seven during their 20 overs. Donwell Hector led the way with 27, Miles Bascombe had 20 while Brown posted 25 not out.
Bowling for Dominica, Ray Casimir snagged two for nine while Vivian Titre dismissed two for 18.
With just 99 runs needed for victory, it seemed Dominica was clearly in the driver’s seat. However, the runs never came and the Dominicans were all out for just 76. Junior Jervier scored 19 and Green had 15.
Bowling for St Vincent, Kenroy Peters bagged three for 11, Keiron Cottoy two for 17, Rolando Wright two for 19 and Alston Bobb was two for 11.
In an interview following the final, Manager of the St Vincent Team A Brown said: “We came here as the underdogs but we knew all the way we had a very good team. A young team with good all around ability and thank today we stand proud as a nation and a team representing St Vincent and the Grenadines.”
Brown dismissed the fact his team scored only 98 runs in 20 overs. He said “we know our strength is our bowling and we realized if we can score a mass total of 90 we could win.”
Following the final the following awards were presented: Man of the Match in the Third Place Playoff, Tade Carmichael (Grenada); Best Economy Rate, Alston Bobb (St Vincent); Highest Individual Score (76), Darren Sammy (St Lucia); Best Run Rate, Mervin Wells (St Lucia); Most Wickets, (nine) Kenroy Peters (St Vincent); Most Runs in the Tournament (130), Devon Smith (Grenada); Player of the Series, Kenroy Peters (St Vincent).
