BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – With Jamaica having regained the regional first-class title, a long, hard season dawdles nearer to its close with the penultimate round of matches in the WICB four-day competition for the Headley/Weekes Trophy set to begin today. The new champions host Guyana at Sabina Park, Leeward Islands welcome Trinidad & Tobago at Webster Park in Anguilla, and the Combined Campuses & Colleges are at home to Barbados at the Three Ws Oval. With the outcome already decided, teams will seek to line themselves up behind the champions, and players will look to enhance their final statistics. At Kingston, the Jamaicans begin their last game of the season with an unbeatable 94 points, giving them their second regional first-class title in a row and eighth overall. The home team set the pace from the start of the competition in early January, and has remained in control for most of the season. When the two sides met in February at the Guyana National Stadium, Jamaica gained first innings points in a drawn match. This time, they will be looking to complete a victory to end the season on a winning note against a depleted Guyana side who have struggled to maintain their previous high standards. Guyana may be a compromised side, but Narsingh Deonarine has been the season’s most prolific batsman and will look to end the season with the most runs. At the Valley, Leewards are hoping to further improve their overall position against T&T. The Leewards are currently third in the championship on 65 points behind 2009 champions Jamaica and the Windwards on 75 points. T&T jointly share fourth place with Barbados on 54 points and only an outright win will push them ahead of the Leewards. The two teams will be playing on a recently re-laid pitch, and members of the ground-staff have said it should offer early bounce and pace to the fast bowlers, but eventually dry out and provide a good surface for stroke-play. When the two sides met in February, T&T gained first innings points in a draw match at the Frank Worrell Memorial Ground in Trinidad. With the Leewards on a tear, they will be looking to get the better of their opponents this time around with Runako Morton, like Deonarine, looking to finish the season as the leading run-scorer. At Cave Hill, it’s a showdown between two sides who should know each other very well, when the CCC meet Barbados. The CCC, a virtual Barbados third-string side with a number of Barbadians in the line-up, have blown hot and cold this season. But they are coming off a strong batting performance in a drawn match against the Leewards, and have acquitted themselves fairly well at home. The Barbadians have lost their last three matches, and the CCC will hope they can conjure up the kind of performance that would add insult to injury. Barbados will be led by Corey Collymore, their third captain of the season, following the axing of Jason Haynes and Dale Richards’ call-up to West Indies duty, and will see schoolboy Kraigg Brathwaite make his first-class debut at the tender age of 16.
Teams jostle for positions behind Jamaica
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