By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
Guyana celebrates their third straight BVICA T30 Nations League title
Guyana wrestled the BVI Cricket Association Thirty 30 Nations League title from the grasp of St. Vincent by using Keon DeJesus and Jamal Mickle’s fourth wicket century stand, to complete a 3-peat title victory on Sunday afternoon in Greenland.
Jamaica finished third after Grenada failed to show up for their match.
After winning the toss and sending St. Vincent to the crease, Guyana sure handed openers Julian Bannett and Avishkar Sewkarran began laying the foundation to take control of the game, after the St. Vincent pair of Casnell Morris and Kalbert Springer, had used a 132 third wicket partnership as the platform to reach 282 for 9 in 30 overs. Bannett and Sewkarran, had a 62-run opening stand. Bannett—who had the league’s highest runs scored with 143 against the BVI—was caught by Morris for 32 and finished Nations League play, with a 183 runs aggregate.
Morris was bowled out by Guyana’s Deco Khemraj for 91, to finish the league with 138 runs scored. It was Khemraj, who was 4 for 50, his only wickets of the league. Springer was later dismissed leg before wicket for 68, off a Sewkerran delivery to end play in third place in the standings with 218 runs. Reno Mettleholzer bagged 2 for 58 to finish in a two-way tie with Grenada’s Derrol Redhead, both with 10 wickets.
With Bannett and Sewkerran gone, Mickle and DeJesus took control with a 137-run fourth wicket partnership—with the help of St. Vincent dropping DeJesus on 78, before he went on to 94 not out, to complete the league with the most runs of 284, buoyed by the fourth highest score of 125 off 61 balls in their first match up with St. Vincent. He was the Man of the Match. Mickle was bowled by Kazim Haywood for his highest score of 60 and ended play with 152 runs scored, helping Guyana to 283 for 2 in 23.0 overs.
“It goes to show that when we work together, our plans come together. We had our senior players step up with three half centuries,” captain Vaden Walker noted. “St. Vincent started very well in the batting, but we ended up restricting them to a manageable total, so this is an all-round effort from our team. It means everything to the players, to our fans to have won it all three times the tournament has been played. We’ve been working hard. I was the stand in captain for the last couple of games as our captain left. The guys trusted me to lead them and I think we did a valiant job just getting over the line, but I want to say congratulations to St. Vincent as well, because they’re playing good cricket.”
St. Vincent captain Imran Smith, described the loss as “another disappointing outing” as they had “turning point chances” in the game but didn’t take them. “On 178, we had their top batsman (DeJesus) who could have been caught at long on and we made a mess of that catch,” Smith noted. “There were other instances in the game where we had chances for a run out and I think that was the twist in the game. We were looking to score above 300, but in the last five (overs) we didn’t score as much as we would have liked. That’s what happened.”
Smith said that it was a competitive season and thinks his players could do better, but that would only happen if they come out to train. “I’ll be very honest about that. We’ll only do better if we stay fit,” he stated. “I have to give it to Guyana, because as a unit, they always make time to come out and train, whether it’s five, seven of them. Maybe that’s why they’re so dominant in these competitions because they always have a collective effort of training, unlike us.”
During awards that followed the competition, DeJesus won most runs scored with 284 including a high of 125. St. Vincent’s Kenron Baptiste took most wickets with 13, with a best of 5 for 17. Jamaica’s Richard Francis was the best wicket keeper and Grenada’s Ragel Noel, the tournament’s MVP.
