A devastating spell of high quality fast bowling by Christopher Jordan, supplemented by a polished, unbeaten knock from Shane Dowrich, choked the Christ Church Dolphins in their defence of the title they won last year while allowing St James Settlers to surge to their first hold on the CO Williams UWI Inter-Parish Championship.
As the curtain came down on the 2011 competition on Tuesday evening at 3Ws Oval, Jordan generated genuine pace and maintained a consistent full length to wreck the highly-touted Dolphins’ batting line-up, restricting them to 102-9 before Dowrich’s domineering strokeplay paced the Settlers to 106-1 to win by nine wickets with three overs and two balls to spare.
Christ Church won the toss and elected to bat in front of the crowd of over 1 500, but Jordan, a professional player with English County Club Surrey, ensured that there was to be no joy for the fans of the island’s southern-most parish as he finished the first over of the match on a hat-trick.
With his fifth delivery, he breached the defence of Dolphins’ danger-man Dwayne Smith, who missed an ambitious drive to be clean-bowled, while the next delivery trapped Kyle Hope in front of the wicket.
Nekoli Parris also had his stumps shattered in the next Jordan over before Settlers’ skipper Shamarh Brooks presented the new batsmen with a generous reprieve by removing the former Combermere School student from the attack after two overs.
Roston Chase and Shai Hope took full advantage of Brooks’ generosity to post a fighting half-century stand but medium pacer Akeem Caddle (2-19), one of the finds of the tournament, removed Hope and captain Mike Matthews to catches taken by Jordan at long off to halt Christ Church’s resurgence.
Chase, in the meantime, battled tenaciously to keep the Dolphins afloat, completing a half-century off 50 balls with one four and two sixes before he was run out at the non-striker’s end when a straight drive by Nikolai Charles ricocheted off the hand of bowler Chad Clarke-Reifer onto the stumps.
Jordan came back for a second spell and wasted little time in wrapping up the innings, uprooting Jared Gilkes’ and Jamar Phillips’ stumps in spectacular fashion to compile figures of 5-17 from four overs.
Any thought of the Dolphins coming back into the game were quickly dispelled by the rampant Dowrich, like Jordan a former Combermerian, who cracked a four and a six off successive deliveries in the first over of the innings sent down by Matthews.
Phillips was dispatched back overhead for another “maximum” in the following over and the slimly-built right-hander, a product of the first graduating class of the Sagicor High Performance Centre, tempered his strokeplay on approaching 50.
He brought up the landmark with a crisply timed pull to deep square leg off Parris’ off spin. The half-century came off 41 balls and contained a further four boundaries and three sixes.
He lost opening partner Dane Maynard for eight in the seventh over after they had put together 42 for the first wicket, before Brooks, oozing confidence from the time of his arrival at the crease, helped to drive the hook deeper into the Dolphins’ throat with their unbeaten match-winning stand of 64.
Brooks had reached 30 by the time Dowrich crashed his 50th delivery over mid-on for his sixth boundary to finish 66 not out and complete the rout.
After the match, players and officials of both teams got their medals from national senior team coach Vasbert Drakes, while Neil Weekes of sponsors CO Williams Construction Company presented the winning cheque of $7 000 to Brooks after pledging the company’s continued support for the competition which has been held annually since 2007.
