… feels CCC can come away with win
FORMER Guyana and West Indies Under-19 skipper Steven Jacobs said he is relishing the opportunity to face the nation of his birth on Friday, when he leads the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) in their day/night encounter against Guyana at the Three W’s Oval, Cave Hill, Barbados.The 25-year-old Jacobs, who was tasked with the responsibility of leading the Caribbean students in this year’s West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Regional tournaments, starting with the recently held NAGICO Super50 in Trinidad and Tobago, believes his new team can come away with the fourth round win against Guyana.
“Think it will be a keen contest and playing at home would give us the advantage … I also think that once we play consistent cricket we can beat them because they haven’t being playing well recently,” said Jacobs.
On the points table, Guyana are in the penultimate position on 13 points, three more than the bottom-placed CCC, but Jacobs who is averaging 18.07 from his 16 first class games in which he accumulated 488 runs with a top score of 75, said he is not fazed.
“I think we are batting and bowling well, but it’s just a matter of time before we put it all together and get the right performance that we really need and I think it will happen when we face Guyana in the fourth round.”
Quizzed on whether there is a particular player or players in the Guyana team that his side would be wary of, Jacobs said, “Not really. They are all a good bunch of cricketers, especially Shivnarine Chanderpaul who would be the mainstay of their batting and his son Tagenarine.
However, you must have team meetings wherein you would discuss how to bowl at the opposition and get players out and we would be doing just that for this game with intensity, for we know a win would certainly set them back further, while propelling us forward.”
He added, “It is important that our bowlers put the balls in the right areas to the specific batsman, thus limiting their scoring opportunities, even as our batsmen – myself included – need to go out there and exercise patience especially during the rough times.”
To date, Guyana have played three matches against Jamaica, Barbados and Windward Islands in that order, losing to the first two and holding on for a draw against the last team, while CCC have played two games against Leeward Islands and Barbados, losing to the former and drawing with the latter.
Looking at Jacobs’ personal performances for CCC to date, he has aggregated 68 runs from four innings in the two matches they played, with a topscore of 23 against the Leeward Islands in the first innings, a game his side lost by 72 runs.
The final XI for Friday’s day/night encounter which bowls off at 15:00hrs will come from Guyana: Leon Johnson (captain), Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Christopher Barnwell, Devendra Bishoo, Anthony Bramble, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Sewnarine Chattergoon, Narsingh Deonarine, Assad Fudadin, Raun Johnson, Keon Joseph, Amir Khan, Veerasammy Permaul, Chandrapaul Hemraj.
CCC from: Steven Jacobs (captain), Anthony Alleyne, Ryan Austin, Kyle Corbin, Akeem Dewar, Kavem Hodge, Kevin McClean, Floyd Reifer, Raymon Reifer, Shacaya Thomas, Chadwick Walton, Jomel Warrican, Kesrick Williams
Below is an outline of the points table after three rounds: (Abbreviation Pts-total points, M-matches, W-won, L-lost, D-drawn, T-tied, NR-no result, Bat-batting points, Bowl-bowling points)

By Calvin Roberts