Roston Chase sweeps West Indies awards night

Roston Chase walked away from the West Indies Players' Association/Cricket West Indies' annual awards ceremony with two of the biggest prizes: the Cricketer of the Year Award, and the Test Cricketer of the Year Award. In addition, the offspin-bowling allrounder from Barbados was also named Emerging Cricketer of the Year and Regional Four-Day Cricketer of the Year. Stafanie Taylor, who is currently leading West Indies' women's team at the World Cup in England, was the Women's Cricketer of the Year.

Men's Test and ODI captain Jason Holder took home the ODI prize, while big-hitting allrounder Andre Russell - who is currently serving a one-year ban for breaking anti-doping whereabouts regulations three times in a 12-month period - won T20I Cricketer of the Year at the ceremony in Jamaica on Friday night.

That Chase was in the spotlight all night was no surprise, given the fighting innings he produced on several occasions in Test cricket over the past year when West Indies were in a hole. Chase made his Test debut in July 2016, and has three hundreds and three fifties in ten Tests at 48.53. Four of these six fifty-plus scores came after his team were four down for less than 70, and one half-century came despite having to go off the field after taking a blow to the elbow off a bouncer from Pakistan quick Mohammad Amir. His hundred in the second innings of that same Test, in Dominica, brought a struggling West Indies to within six balls of saving the match - he was batting on 101 not out off 239 balls when No. 11 Shannon Gabriel was dismissed. Another of the hundreds, 137 against India in Jamaica last August, got the job done, helping West Indies bat out 104 overs and draw despite being 48 for 4.