Greater Portmore made it two wins from two in the SDC/Wray and Nephew Community T20 Cricket Competition on Sunday, May 8, 2022 after defeating former national champions Old Harbour by 120 runs at Chedwin Park.
With both teams achieving Victory on the opening day May 1, 2022, this Sunday’s battle was a top-of-the-table clash but it turned out that was only true at the toss as the match was heavily one-sided throughout.
Batting first Greater Portmore did not get off to the ideal start as they lost the opener Rushane Gordon for 4 runs in the first over of the game bowled by Jemoy Cummings.
However, West Indies Under-19 invitee Nicholas Lewin and Kimani Morgan who is coming off an unbeaten half-century from week one came together and added 55 runs for the second wicket. The younger Lewin was the main aggressor in the partnership. The pair also took 22 runs from the third over of the innings bowled by Cummings who was thereafter taken out of the attack ending with figures of 1-32 from two overs.
Morgan’s innings of 13 just did not get going and lasted 22 balls, with the right-hander failing to score a boundary. His dismissal with the score of 66 in the 8th over came as blessing for the team as they added 144 runs in the final 12 overs.
Overs 8 to 12 was a fruitful spell for the Old Harbour-based team as they picked up 4 wickets for 32 runs including that of Lewin for a top score of 64 from 33 balls with his innings consisting of 5 fours and 3 sixes.
However, as Old Harbour felt they were back in the contest the game was once again taken away from them by some brutal lower-order hitting from Under-19 representative Brandon English and Aaron Daley. The two added 75 runs in 5 overs with Daley hitting 5 fours and as many sixes in a 24-ball knock of 59 runs. English was left unbeaten on 31 runs from 19 balls while another West Indies Under-19 representative Justin Beckford made 23 runs Not Out.
There was little to celebrate for the Old Harbour Bowlers with 210 runs for 6 wickets on the board, but Dennis McDonald ended with 2 wickets for 46 runs while four other bowlers had one wicket apiece.
With over 200 runs on the board, Old Harbour needed a good start and the opening pair of Junior Stewart and Alex Henry negotiated the first 4 overs of the innings but they found runs hard to come by as they could only manage to score 16 runs.
It didn’t get better from there as they lost Henry in the 5th over for 1 run. Fourteen (14) runs later Stewart was dismissed for 25 runs which turned out to be the top score in the innings. From there only Mario Davis got to double figures as the Greater Portmore Bowlers ripped through the opposition batting to having them all out for 90 runs in 16.5 overs.
It was a disappointing batting display for the Old Harbour team who were also playing with one player short. That was of little concern to the Greater Portmore Bowlers as five of six bowlers used registered at least a wicket. The list was led by Brandon English (3-26) while Raewin Senior (2-28) and Ryan Forrest (2-5) also contributed with the ball.
In the second game at Chedwin Park St John’s East hand their first points of the campaign as they defeated Red Ground by 45 runs in a game which saw 18 wickets going down.
St John’s East who were soundly beaten by Greater Portmore last week produced a better batting display as they posted 144 runs for 9 wickets after batting first.
The middle and lower middle-order was where most of their runs came from as they lost both openers in Alexio Daley scoring 9 runs and Kirk Brooks 0, with just 30 runs on the board. Geovanni Stewart with 29 runs batting at number eight and Mikhail Miller with 24 runs were the main contributors to St John’s East’s total of 144 runs all out in 18.4 overs. Marlon Henry who scored 18 runs and Romain Bennett putting up 18 runs also had excellent starts but failed to make any meaningful contribution to the total as Kenroy Grant ended pick of the Red Ground bowlers with 4 wickets 32 runs. Marvin Mills also picked up 2 wickets for 34 runs for his team.
Now in their run chase, Red Ground showed little fight and their innings eventually folded at 99 runs all out.
The top score of 18 runs in their innings came off the bat of Jordan Campbell. Marlon Bent also contributed 17 runs while only six of the innings came from the bat of Sean Reid who made 13 runs from 10 balls.
Dashawn Robinson had a good outing with the ball for St John’s East as he ended with 3 wickets for 18 runs while Gerald Morgan also had 2 wickets 13 runs.
Over the next three-weeks, 42 community cricket teams will continue to face-off in a round robin format before the tops teams move forward to the next round. The next exciting feature match is schedule for Sunday May 15,2022, will take place at French Park Oval, French Park, Manchester. The match fixture dictates that Comfort Cricket Team will face the South Star Cricket Team at 10:00 am. At 1:00pm the defending Parish Champion and the National SDC/Wray and Nephew Community T20 Cricket Campion for 2021 will will go up against the combined forces of the Lane/Turner Top/Butt-Up Cricket Team.
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