MOLINEUX, ST. KITTS—Codville Rogers became the second player in the 2009 Nagico Cricket Tournament to score a century, notching 102 runs yesterday to help St. Kitts pulverize the US Virgin Islands by 211 runs at the Edgar Gilbert Sports Complex in Molineux in St. Kitts. Rogers’ 102 followed a scintillating 116 scored by St. Maarten’s John Eugene on Monday at the Caribe Lumber Ballpark in St. Maarten against the British Virgin Islands.
Rogers was given a standing ovation from the home crowd and congratulated by fellow batsman in the crease, Junie Mitchum who had scored 56 the day before. St. Kitts scored 293 for 5, but USVI could only muster up 82 all out, a marked improvement to the 56 runs they scored on Monday against Nevis. S. Liburd and Shane Jeffers scored 39 and 14 runs respectively for St. Kitts and Marishaw scored a respectable 46 runs for the winners. Junie Mitchum came off with 34 runs before he was caught by USVI’s N. Stuart and Esroy Powell and James Taylor were not out on eight and 16 runs respectively.
It was a woeful batting performance for the visitors, as after the lunch break, wickets fell like rain. Kevin Hanley, McCall and Williams wreaked havoc in the Virgin Islands batting line up sending top order batsmen for single digit scores. N. Stuart and Andrew Eusibe were both out for ducks; D. Jones was caught by Ward for 12, S. Jones was caught at wicket by Marishaw from Hanley’s economical bowling, Dale Africa who has been a powerhouse for the USVI team since the start of the this tournament had to settle for eight runs after he was comprehensively bowled by Hanley; B. Andrew was bowled LBW by McCall for 18, Gary Daniel was caught and bowled by James Taylor for 23 and McCall took K. Vidal’s and D. Weston’s wicket for two and six runs respectively. Ray Frederick was not out as St. Kitts only bowled nine extras. Weston introduced himself to the St. Kitts bowlers with a well hit six across mid-wicket but that was all the highlight for him for the day and his wicket was the second to last to go for the day, just seconds after hitting that six.
Hanley’s impressive bowling saw him taking two wickets for only11 runs off six overs, two of which were maiden overs. Hanley took three wickets off 26 runs and a maiden over out of seven overs; McCall grabbed three wickets for 16 runs off three overs and Powell and Taylor both failed to take wickets with just 27 runs coming off the two bowlers combined. USVI did better on the bowling end, though at a steep cost. Dale Weston took a wicket with 31 runs coming off him in the process from five overs. Africa after four overs failed to take a wicket and gave away 25 runs; Frederick played 10 overs, had only one wicket that cost him 63 runs, Eusibe and Daniels both played 10 overs each and shed 47 and 43 runs respectively each taking a wicket, while Stuart and Jones had a combined 66 runs hit from them without taking a wicket.
St. Kitts next face Nevis in what promises to be a showdown in Molineux between two arch-rivals in Leeward Islands cricket. St. Kitts’ coach Percy Daniel is fully aware of this and makes it known they are prepared for Nevis. "Just to play against Nevis is a threat because there is a serious rivalry against islands and teams. The rivalry solely will not win any game. It has to be the team that plays the better cricket on the given day," Daniels said. "One of our concerns was our batting…one of our batters went on to make 100 and that is definitely a plus," the coach assessed.
He noted that the overall game plan was executed in the USVI match to a certain extent. "Our target was over 300 (runs). We didn’t get to that target so in some ways we have faltered a little bit but in terms of the overall game plan, we achieved to a certain extent what we wanted to achieve," Daniels said.