CONTRASTING CENTURIES by openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Lendl Simmons highlighted the second day of the Regional 4-Day Championship final at Kensington Oval yesterday as Barbados remained on course to capture their 21st first-class cricket title.
Whereas 20-year-old Brathwaite carefully carved out a fourth first-class century to put Barbados in a strong position against Trinidad and Tobago, Simmons, 28, savagely counter-attacked in the day’s final session to save his team’s blushes with a belligerent 111 not out.
Facing a deficit of 259 runs after Barbados made 369 in reply to the visitors’ meagre first innings effort of 110, Simmons launched an enterprising assault on the Barbados bowling as the visitors closed on 140 for four, still 119 runs in arrears.
Captain Denesh Ramdin was the other not out batsman on 13.
Simmons unfurled an array of audacious shots in the face of another inspired new ball spell from emerging 22-year-old fast bowler Miguel Cummins, who followed up his five-wicket first innings haul with three more wickets for 41 runs.
The lanky Cummins trapped Adrian Barath leg before wicket for two and induced edges from Yannic Cariah (two) and Jason Mohammed (who collected his second pair against Barbados this year) to push his season’s tally to 34 wickets.
Lone ranger Simmons raced to a 20-ball 50 with six fours and four sixes and even though he took his foot off the gas somewhat, he still accelerated to his tenth first-class hundred, off 53 balls in 71 minutes.
It was adorned by ten fours and six sixes.
Simmons’ knock contrasted with Brathwaite’s typically circumspect 122 in 420 minutes off 303 balls with nine fours.
He was ninth out, bowled by leg-spinner Imran Khan after pushing his season’s aggregate to 577 runs.
Brathwaite weathered an impressive spell with the second new ball by seamer Marlon Richards, who finished with the fine figures of four for 55 in 21 overs.
Resuming from 144 for two, Barbados lost nightwatchman Javon Searles for ten to pacer Shannon Gabriel, but progressed to 222 for three before a brief shower resulted in an early lunch.
On resumption, Jonathan Carter, who had played an attractive on-drive off Gabriel and had taken a liking to Khan, was eventually yorked middle stump for 47 off 60 balls by Gabriel with the first ball of a new spell.
Trinidad and Tobago immediately took the second new ball and Richards, who surprisingly wasn’t used in the pre-lunch session, removed Kevin Stoute and Shane Dowrich, who both made six, to catches at the wicket by Steven Katwaroo, deputizing behind the stumps after lunch for Ramdin, who went into the outfield.
But Brathwaite, who was dropped in the gully on 96 by the leaping Mohammed off Gabriel, duly reached his century with a tight single to short midwicket but could’ve been run out had the throw by Barath hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end.
Shortly after, Richards removed Ashley Nurse and Sulieman Benn, but Trinidad and Tobago were frustrated by an entertaining last-wicket stand of 40 between Kemar Roach (29 not out) and Cummins, with his best knock of 18.
Batting a second time, Trinidad and Tobago were given an electrifying start by Simmons, who knocked pacer Roach out of the attack after he was flayed for 25 in two overs, including two sixes over long-off.
When Roach was replaced by left-arm spinner Benn, Simmons also hoisted him for a huge six over the Garfield Sobers Pavilion and followed with two cuts for consecutive fours.
Simmons wasn’t fazed by Cummins’ double strike in his third over with the wickets of Cariah and Mohammed to leave Trinidad and Tobago on 54 for three after getting rid of Barath.
He casually backed away to the leg side and cut Cummins for sixes over point in consecutive overs.
Then when teenager Akeal Hosein was out for eight at 87 for four, giving Benn a low return catch, Simmons became a bit more selective with his shots as Ramdin joined him, but he still swung Benn over mid-wicket for his sixth six into the Hall And Griffith Stand.
After powerfully driving the next ball through extra cover for four, he reached his third hundred versus Barbados in only the 20th over of the innings – with the score at the stage amazingly just 129 for four – by cutting Nurse for four through the covers.
