The scores read like numbers from a lottery draw, while the drama unfolded like a scene from a horror movie.
At least for Barbados it did.
Off-spinner Narsingh Deonarine finished with a career-best seven-wicket haul, and Assad Fudadin gobbled up five catches, as Barbados slumped to a humiliating innings and 66-run defeat at Kensington Oval in their fifth-round WICB regional four-day encounter against Guyana yesterday.
In a shocking turn of events, Barbados, resuming from their overnight score of five for one, suffered a dramatic collapse to be all out for 58, ten minutes before lunch on the fourth and final day, to catapult Guyana into second position in the overall standings.
The hosts’ score was their sixth lowest total ever, and their lowest since the introduction of a sponsored tournament back in 1966.
On a flat wicket which hardly provided any surprises for the batsmen, the thought of Barbados having to bat the entire day was not a far-fetched one, as Guyana had shown the previous day. What happened next was.
The overnight pair of Kraigg Brathwaite and Miguel Cummins had moved the score along to 15, when just like Omar Phillips who had perished in the closing stages of the previous day, Brathwaite prodded forward to a delivery from Deonarine and was caught at forward short-leg to give Fudadin his second catch.
It was 15 for two and it quickly became 17 for three when Ryan Hinds waltzed past a turning delivery from Deonarine and was stumped by wicketkeeper Derwin Christian.
Without a run added to the score, Ronsford Beaton produced a beautiful delivery which Cummins, who had batted for 40 minutes without scoring, could only glance behind to the ’keeper.
Fudadin was soon back in the thick of things, snapping up Jonathan Carter’s edge at second slip off the bowling of Beaton as Barbados crumbled to 18 for five.
Deonarine continued to bemuse the Barbadian batsmen, with Kenroy Williams, who scored two, becoming his next victim, bowled through the gate as he looked to drive through the offside with the score on 25.
Shane Dowrich arrived at the crease, and he wasted no time in pulling a short delivery from Deonarine to the midwicket boundary.
But with his very next ball, Man Of The Match Deonarine, who also scored 84 in Guyana’s innings, had the batsman caught by Fudadin at forward short-leg as he played forward tentatively.
A brief 19-run partnership between captain Shamarh Brooks and Christopher Jordan for eight overs halted the visitors’ imminent victory, before Brooks became Deonarine’s sixth victim.
In trying to turn a short ball onto the legside, Brooks succeeded only in getting a leading edge, which ballooned into the air for the bowler to take an easy return catch and leave the score 48 for eight.
His score of 15 proved to be the joint highest of the innings, as Sulieman Benn, who was lbw to Veerasammy Permaul, and Pedro Collins followed soon after, leaving all-rounder Christopher Jordan unbeaten on 15 as well.
The 28-year-old Deonarine finished with the astounding figures of seven for 26 from his 12 overs and it was his second ever five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.
The defeat left Barbados fourth in the standings on 24 points behind leaders Jamaica (60), Guyana (36) and Trinidad and Tobago on 28 points, going into Friday’s match against the Leeward Islands at the same venue.