Canada today earned a second Red Stripe Bowl victory, this time over the Rest of the Leewards Islands, but only after a nail-biting 20 run last wicket partnership between Nick de Groot and Barry Seebaran. The Canadians almost threw away the chance of victory that had bee gained through hard work in the field with some adventurous but perhaps unwise batting by the upper order.

In front of a small crowd, the Leewards chose to bat after winning the toss, but were in immediate trouble against the Canadian pacers. Watt was caught by Seebaran off Joseph with the score on 17, and his opening partner Crafton followed, lbw to Codrington two runs later. Harris and Eugene built a partnership of some promise until Eugene was stunningly caught by Davison at short extra, diving to snap up a hard drive inches above the ground. Joe Harris changed his bowlers intelligently and the spinners Davison and Seebaran both bowled well, not afraid to challenge the batsmen by flighting the ball. Seebaran reaped immediate reward for this tactic when Harris skied a drive to Billcliff. Nick de Groot also bowled well, yorking top-scorer Sylvester for 34, and Joseph came back to mop up the tail. Joseph took 3/32, and his figures would have been even better if he could have controlled a few wayward leg-side deliveries. The two spinners bowled 20 overs for 47 runs and three wickets, and de Groot finished with 2/26. The Leewards certainly did not field a powerful batting line-up, but this was another strong performance by Canada in the field, with Bagai again impressive behind the stumps.

The Beausejour wicket has not yielded many high totals, and definitely offers bowlers considerable assistance. The Canadians tried a change of tactics when faced with the comparatively small target of 139, and came out with all guns firing. The opening two overs were almost non-stop action, featuring 2 sixes, 2 fours and two wickets. Ishwar Maraj cut a lovely four in the first over, then played on to Thomas. John Davison, elevated in the order as a pinch hitter, hit his first ball for four, his second for six over extra cover, and was bowled off his third as he advanced down the wicket and missed a slower deivery. Fazil Sattaur also got into the action with a hooked six off his second ball, and with Joe Harris stroking a couple of boundaries the score had reached 35/2 after just four overs. Sattaur tried another big shot and skied a high catch, and then Ian Billcliff, playing his first match in the series edged a catch to the keeper. Four wickets had gone down for just 43 runs, and some stability was desperately required. Bagai provided this, playing carefully and letting Harris continue the attack from the other end. Joe Harris was looking untroubled by the bowling until he attempted to pull a long-hop from Shillingford over the longest boundary on the ground, only to be well caught by George as he slipped and fell. At 70/5 the match was in the balance. Nick de Groot fully justified his place down the order with some eminently sensible batting, and he and Bagai took the total past 100. Bagai had played a couple of classy cover drives before he was very well caught by keeper Phillips diving far to his right.

The balance of the match switched completely as Samad fell to Thomas for just a single, Codrington was bowled by Shillingford for a duck, and Joseph soon followed. Canada still needed 20 more runs with only Barry Seebaran to accompany de Groot. Thomas, by far the Leewards best bowler (5/33) had finished his 10 overs, and so Lewis had to turn to his 5th bowler the medium pacer Sylvester. With the tension mounting, de Groot hit two boundaries off Slyvester, and with Seebaran batting sensibly, Canada squeaked past the target with 9 overs remaining.

Canada will be pleased with another win, but were perhaps fortunate that their batting tactics did not back-fire. A quick win certainly would have helped their net run rate, which may yet come into play in deciding the semi-finalists, but they were rather closer to losing a match they should have won easily than they would have liked. They face Trinidad and Tobago in their final match with a place in the semi-finals on the line, and will have to bat much better to stand a chance of an upset.

© CCA/ Dave Liverman

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