T&T clinch title with 125-run win

Trinidad and Tobago 340 (Emrit 112, Simmons 84, Mohammed 50, Collins 4-52) and 266 (Kelly 93) beat Barbados 270 (Edwards 64) and 211 (Richards 58, Hinds 50, Mohammed 4-55, Jaggernauth 4-62) by 125 runs
Scorecard

No longer are they the Cinderella Kids. West Indies cricket now has its own "Soca Warriors". At 1.30 in the afternoon at Guaracara Park, Daren Ganga and his team cast aside their fairytale tag when Amit Jaggernauth bowled Pedro Collins to land the Carib Beer Challenge regional first-class title for Trinidad and Tobago.

To hail the 125-run win and second title of the season, the house DJ bestowed on the cricketers, through the lyrics of Maximus Dan a new title. "I'm a soca warrior..and I'm a fighter"! The World Cup football war cry had been appropriately adapted yesterday afternoon when the T&T players grabbed stumps, hugged each other, and later, did a lap of honour around the Park, mostly through a tangle of fans. Twenty one years after Rangy Nanan had the honour of delivering a first-class trophy to T&T after victory over a Barbados team at home, Ganga had the pleasure of doing the same.

"We played cricket consistently well and we came out in this final and we did exactly that", said Ganga after he had been presented with the trophy. "We knew that we were at home, we knew we were favourites and we came out here and with the support of the crowd we were able to deliver."

The final delivery of the double was in doubt perhaps only in the stoutest of Bajan hearts yesterday morning when the visitors resumed on 110 for 4, chasing 337 for victory. The pitch, still admirably good after four days, still provided captain Ryan Hinds (not out 14 overnight) and his fellow batsmen the chance of snatching victory. But the latest T&T warriors had proven time and again, and in this match in particular, that they had more fight in them than any of their counterparts in the region this season. In this game, that refusal to give way was seen in Rayad Emrit and Richard Kelly, who with both bat and ball, delivered for their team when it was needed.

Emrit, for his vital and match-shaping 112 and three first-innings wickets, pipped Kelly for the Man-of-the-Match award. But Kelly, with 314 runs and 16 wickets over this stop-start season which began last November, captured the Malcolm Marshall award as the tournament's top allrounder.

But yesterday, the executors of the coup de grace were the spinners, Dave Mohammed and Jaggernauth. Mohammed capped an outstanding season of bowling of sustained quality with four second-innings wickets, all of them on the final day.

He started with his first ball upon replacing Mervyn Dillon at the northern end. Debutant Kirk Edwards, palpably mis-stumped by wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin on the previous afternoon, had got to 10 when Mohammed's tempting flight drew him out of his crease, just enough for Ramdin to complete a stumping more difficult than the one he had missed. The score was then 132 for 5. Hinds and Edwards had added a useful but insufficient 33.

Wicketkeeper Patrick Browne - later given the Deryck Murray award for being the season's leading wicketkeeper with 28 dismissals - came out, intent not to be a lamb to a Trini slaughter. Positively, he went about adding 40 for the sixth wicket with his captain, playing a series of confident strokes which brought him five fours and a six in 31.

But before lunch was taken, T&T had tightened their grip once more. Having been the beneficiary of some close lbw decisions against Jaggernauth, he succumbed, falling on his blade with a pull out to the midwicket boundary off the offspinner which landed safely in Dwayne Bravo's hands.

At lunch, Barbados still needed another 150 runs. But after the break they got just 24 more in losing their remaining four wickets.

Included in that final tally was Hinds, the tournament's leading scorer with 720 runs, who, attempting to hit Mohammed over the long-off boundary, miscued and instead, fell to a steepling, well-judged catch by Kelly running back from mid-off.

"Tadpole" Mohammed was doing swimmingly well. And by 1.30 when Jaggernauth cleaned up Collins, he was leaping about. It was just a warrior's joy.