ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Shimron Hetmyer starred with a high quality half-century but it was Guyana Jaguars’ spinners who strangled Barbados Pride before rain ended their misery, and sent them to a 56-run defeat under Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method here last night.
Initially chasing a modest 236 in the second match of the newly minted Regional Super50 Cup at Coolidge Cricket Ground, Pride’s target was revised to 232 off 47 overs following the second of two rain breaks.
However, they had reached 91 for five in the 30th – already facing a required run rate of over eight runs per over – when rain returned to ruin any further prospects of play.
Off-spinner Kevin Sinclair picked up from where he left off in the last Super50 two years ago, snatching two for 17 from 7.3 stingy overs while Chandrapaul Hemraj provided the early momentum for Jaguars by conceding just 27 runs from 10 overs of left-arm spin after being thrown the new ball.
Opener Zachary McCaskie laboured 60 balls over 25 and Test batsman Shamarh Brooks got a start with 21 but Pride lost four wickets for 23 runs in the space of 30 deliveries, to lose their way and fall behind on the scoring rate under DLS.
“We were a little slow out of the blocks. Obviously the Guyanese bowlers bowled really well up front,” Pride captain Jason Holder said afterwards.
“I still think we could have manoeuvred the strike a lot better than we did and that kind of hampered us in the way we started.
“We kept wickets intact, yes, but then we lost two wickets after the rain break which really pushed us back a little bit further and I got out shortly after that as well.
“There was never much momentum going through the middle overs and it’s just unfortunate how the game ended.”
Opting to bat first, Jaguars were propelled by the irrepressible Hetmyer whose top score of 80 came from just 52 balls while all-rounder Romario Shepherd, punching at eight, belted a cavalier unbeaten 58 also from 52 deliveries. Hemraj chipped in with 35 from 26 balls but there was only single digits for the remaining top six as off-spinner Ashley Nurse (3-44) and Holder (3-53) grabbed three wickets apiece to restrict Jaguars to 235 all out in the 42nd over.
“[A total of] 235 is not what we were looking for – it’s just below par here, 260 being par batting first,” said captain Leon Johnson.
“But I thought the bowlers did well. We knew that 190 was the score that teams batting second usually get, so obviously we backed ourselves and we executed well.”
He added: “Nine overs [were] left [in the innings]; that’s 54 balls – a lot was left out there. A lot of the batters didn’t apply themselves.”
Hemraj played freely at the top, hitting five fours and a six as he added 48 for the first wicket with fellow left-hander Assad Fudadin (5).
Once Fudadin picked out long off with Nurse in the ninth over, Nurse and Holder combined to run through the top order and Jaguars lost five wickets for 40 runs off 45 deliveries.
Hetmyer put on an exhibition of stroke-play, striking eight fours and four sixes as he galloped to his eighth List A fifty, while adding 55 for the sixth wicket with Anthony Bramble (14).
When Hetmyer was seventh out in the 28th over, skying to Nurse at mid-off off Holder, Shepherd arrived to thump half-dozen fours and two sixes to gather precious runs towards the end.
A straightforward target then became complicated once openers McCaskie and Justin Greaves (6) struggled up front against Hemraj and Shepherd, and when Greaves holed out to mid-wicket off Sinclair in the 10th over, Pride were going nowhere at 21 for one.
McCaskie and Brooks tried to repair the innings in a second wicket stand of 35 but with the partnership requiring 60 balls, pressure built and was only released when Brooks had his off-stump pegged back by seamer Nial Smith in the 20th over.
Shepherd then hit McCaskie in front in the next over, Sinclair shattered Roston Chase’s stumps for nine in the 24th over with one that turned before left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie got the prized wicket of Holder caught and bowled eight balls later in his first over, the all-rounder tapping a short ball of little merit back down the pitch.
