WICCB 4th Regional tourney
They came, they started slow, but still manage to come out on tops as double champions, when the fourth Regional West Indies Cricket Council for the Blind tournament came to an end at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence yesterday.

As they did on the previous day against host Guyana, Jamaica outplayed Trinidad and Tobago from the toss right up to the final over of their innings to retain the title for the fourth year in a row, restricting their opponents to 87-8 to which they replied with 88-1 from 9.4 overs, to complete a hard fought nine wicket victory.

Jamaica, winners of the tournament in 2006, ‘07 and ’08, won the toss and asked the Trinidadians who shared the championship with them last year, to take first strike in slightly overcast conditions and even though their opponents raced to 21 without loss from two overs, they remained calm and pulled themselves back into the game.

Opener Jermaine Payah who is a B3 (partially sighted) batsman, went for a straight drive off a slower delivery from Jason Ricketts a B1 player (100% Blind) and lost his middle stump, a wicket which changed the course of the game for his team.

Keith Baptiste the hero of the Trinidad/ Barbados game, was stumped by wicketkeeper Lo-Shane Myles off Denol Shim (1-10) and with six batters going via the run out route, Trinidad and Tobago found themselves on the ropes at 56-8 in the eight over.

Sheldon Phillips with an unbeaten 23 which included four fours and Rodney Ramrattan with seven not out, took the score to the final total, adding 31 from the final two overs of the innings.

Openers Shim (43 not out 6×4) and Rickets (36), then added 55 for the first wicket from seven overs, before Ricketts stepped on his wicket, but it only accommodated the entrance of Gregory Stewart who made an unbeaten seven whilst adding the remaining 33 runs with Shim who had the opportunity of hitting the winning boundary amongst his six, to complete the win for his team.

In the Challenge Cup matchup featuring Jamaica and Barbados, the team from the Land of the Flying Fish were asked to take first strike in sultry conditions and building on the back of a 76 runs opening partnership between skipper Tremayne Forte ( 42) and Ricardo Manning (29), scored 153-4 from their 20 overs.

The two took 8.4 overs to accumulate the runs, before Forte who struck four fours in his innings was run out and was quickly followed by Manning who was later declared the best batsman in the League format of the tournament, lbw to the bowling of Toussaint Gardner.

Granville Carter (18) and Holden Forde (19) then took the score to 125 before Carter was run out in the 17th over, whilst Forde was bowled by Shim two balls before the completion of his team’s over, after adding 26 with Cheryl Griffith who was unbeaten on 16.

Jamaica began their reply in ripping form, racing to 59 from a mere 5.4 overs with Myles (20) and Ricketts (34) taking the attack to the opposition bowling, obvious bent on avenging their team’s loss in the League format of the game, before the former was run out.

Gregory Stewart (01) joined Ricketts, and after seeing his partner going via the lbw route to Anthony Cummings (2-39) 10 runs later, he went down the track and was stumped by wicketkeeper Trevor Broomes off the same bowler, to leave Jamaica shakily placed on 69-3.

Denol Shim () and Damian Mc Lean (06) pushed the score to 94 in the 12th over before Mc Lean was lbw to Adrian Daniel (1-28), but his demise did not deter Shim, as the batsman took the attack to the opposition with two boundaries in Daniel’s following over, which pushed the score to 118-4 at the end of the 14th over.

Dwayne Graham (05) replaced Mc Lean but he did not hang around long enough, as he too was lbw to Carter, but that was the last success for Barbados, as Gardner (12*) joined Shim and together they steered the Jamaicans to 154-5 from 18.4 overs and double tournament success with it.