As St. Maarten look towards Saturday’s semi-final match against Nevis in the NAGICO/Leeward Islands One Day Cricket Tournament, some consider it divine intervention that gave St. Maarten a two run win against St. Kitts on Tuesday. At least that’s how Darren Sammy, West Indies player and special invite on the St. Maarten team sees it.
"St. Maarten did everything to lose the game. I told them in the dressing room that is the prayer John Eugene said this morning; divine intervention that caused us to win this game," Sammy said. The match was played at the Caribe Lumber Ballpark in St. Maarten and sealed St. Maarten’s place in the semi-finals. The loss eliminated St. Kitts from the competition; a team that is accustomed to advancing past the preliminary rounds of this competition.
Despite some poor plays as Sammy alluded to, he commended the excellent performances on the team, particularly John Eugene’s batting and Kenroy David’s excellent bowling that saw him taking 4 wickets for 36 runs. He is however disappointed with the fielding as there were at least 5 drop catches. He wants some more fielding work to be done ahead of Saturday semi-finals and also wants the batsmen to build on the foundation set by the top order batsmen.
St. Maarten Coach Rishie Singh was pleased with the result and gave his players full credit for sticking to the plan. Despite the win however, Singh was not happy with the fielding. He said after Sunday’s game against Montserrat, he told his players that the win was not clinical and areas in fielding needed work. He shared the same sentiment again on Tuesday as the team still fielded poorly against St. Kitts. "There was a lot of mis-catches, a lot of mis-fielding and lot of mis-stumping and (missed) run outs and we made it job actually difficult for us. At the end we won the game but St. Kitts would be very disappointed with the outcome because I think they had (the game) and we made it easy for them and in the end they just faltered," Singh said.
St. Maarten’s bowling is proving more effective than it’s batting and Singh said this needs to be worked on as well ahead of the semi-finals. "We bat all the way down so we are very disappointed that we are not able to bat out our allotted overs," Singh said. "Going into the semi-final you are playing against top opposition ….we need to get our senior players to spend more time at the crease and give us more scores."
Meanwhile, Coach Singh is pleased with Sammy’s effort on the team especially with his bowling. He wants to see some improvement however, in his batting; an area that Sammy acknowledges is a work in progress as he is just recovering from injury. "I am coming from injury and I am just getting into it game by game. Each game I play my rhythm seems to be better but I continue. I am happy to contribute with the bat and ball for St. Maarten and helping us move through the semi-final stages but I would be glad to balance both my batting, my bowling and my fielding as well," Sammy said.
St. Kitts coach Percy Daniel, obviously dejected with the loss against St. Maarten, blamed the lack of team effort his team’s exit from the competition. "We did not play as a team; in my opinion we did not bat as a team and to some extent we didn’t bowl as a team," Daniel said. He said instructions were passed on to the field during the match but were not followed. Consequently, 20 additional runs were scored he said. He referred to the fact that St. Kitts needed only 23 runs with 30 deliveries at the 45th. The captain, Steve Liburd on a knock of 62 was still at the crease but after he was out, the other batsmen did not pick up where he left off because of lack of team effort, assessed the coach. He even spoke about the last ball of the match where St. Kitts needed 3 runs to win, yet one of the batsmen only ran once and did not follow on until the ball was ruled dead by the umpire; even after one of the fielders overthrew the ball. "It was a lack of knowledge and a lack of following instruction that we have to address," Daniel said, adding that this does not apply only to his team but also to West Indies cricket.
The coach said compared to last year, his team’s performance this year was poorer. Last year, St. Kitts made it to the semi-finals before losing to St. Maarten. "The consistency in the batting….was very, very much lacking. It is the basic reason why we are in the predicament we are in," Daniel said.