The Seventh-day Adventist Primary School was crowned the Scotiabank Inter-Elementary School Kiddy’s Cricket champions with a thrilling five wicket win over Hillside Christian School at Caribe Lumber Ballpark, on Wednesday.
Competing in their first Kiddy’s Cricket tournament, Seventh-Day Adventist outplayed all their opponents en route to the championship trophy. They finished unbeaten in the tournament after wins against Browlia Maillard Campus (MAC 1) and Hillside in the preliminary round, Learning Unlimited in the semi-final and then Hillside again in the final.
In the final, they bowled out Hillside for 55 in 8.2 overs. For Hillside, Devon Jones blasted 23 with two fours and two sixes to lead all scorers on his team. Jones’ inning had the more than two dozens supporters cheering and shouting in delight as he hit boundary after boundary.
However, when he was dismissed, the winners were able to restrict the batting team. Jeff Arrindell was the next batsman in double figures with 11 (1 four, 1 six). Jamal Bobb was the best bowler with two for no runs from one over.
In response, captain Ravi Sukhram compiled a sensible inning of 30 not out to guide his team towards their first championship. The other noteworthy scores came from Bobb who made 10 not out and Kelvin Quashie with nine.
For Hillside and the Adventist schools to play in the final, they had to get past Rev. John A. Gumbs Campus (MAC 2) and Learning Unlimited (LU) respectively. Adventist defeated LU by seven wickets and Hillside beat MAC 2 by one wicket.
After the matches, Selma Baker of Scotiabank and Michael Teixeira and Kenny Hingorani of the St. Maarten Cricket Association made brief statements to the more than 50 young cricketers who were sporting their traditional Kiddy’s Cricket red t-shirt.
Six schools competed in this year’s tournament with LU and Hillside joining Adventist as schools participating for the first time. Aktar Hassan of MAC 2 collected the trophy for the Most Runs of the tournament which tallied to 93.
Shazeem Saheed of the Adventist school was given the trophy for the Best Bowler for his eight wickets, while Devon Jones of Hillside was voted the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.
