After the first three balls of the match, Trinidad & Tobago went 18 deliveries without a run off the bat. They lost three wickets in the process. They even struggled to score at four an over for the first nine overs. All the makings then of a stirring comeback for a Caribbean side. The stirring comeback happened through Denesh Ramdin and Darren Bravo, it was sustained by Ravi Rampaul and Samuel Badree with the ball, but Trinidad & Tobago ran out of quality bowlers.
Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid made astute use of T&T’s limitations, adding 103 for the fifth wicket. Between them, Rampaul and Badree went for 44 in eight overs, but Yorkshire plundered 110 of the remaining 10.5. By chasing successfully, Yorkshire progressed to the main competition, leaving T&T and Uva Next to play an inconsequential game.
For a long while, though, the match followed the script written in the World Twenty20 final three days ago. Five of that winning squad were part of this XI. It was Ramdin and Bravo who did what Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Bravo had done in the World Twenty20. Ramdin, in particular, needed to do this because his moves as captain had put him in a potentially embarrassing situation. First he chose to bat first on a moist, sticky pitch. Then he came in to bat at No. 5, which seemed awfully early. Ramdin responded with a punchy little counterattack and Bravo provided solidity at the other end.
T&T had three openers in the XI, all three of whom played poor shots to make it 8 for 3 after three overs. Ryan Sidebottom and Steven Patterson kept the pressure on, but Yorkshire had only three seamers to use. From the moment they brought the spinners on, Bravo and Ramdin batted with freedom.
Rashid opened the floodgates in the 10th over, first staying away from bowling legbreaks, and then dragging them half way down when he did bowl them. The two legbreaks in his first over went for four and six, and T&T were away. That over started a spell of six overs that went for 63 runs. There were the elegant drives from Bravo, and improvisation from Ramdin, who hardly played any dots.
Rashid brought Yorkshire back, though, as Bravo played a mistimed loft just before he could reach his fifty. Despite two run-outs after that, the T&T lower order kept going, making it 111 in the last 11 overs. Sidebottom starred with 3 for 13, but his support cast had left the batsmen much to do.
The second part of the match also got off to a familiar start. Badree got a left-hand batsman grazing the stumps, Rampaul troubled the top order with some heavy balls, and Yorkshire threatened to disintegrate under the pressure of the chase. However, they had also exhausted seven of their eight overs. At 51 for 4, T&T needed one of their lesser bowlers to step up after the good work.
It wasn’t to be. Rashid started the turnaround with back-to-back fours off medium-pacer Rayad Emrit in the 10th over. The big-hitting Ballance then took over, targeting the lesser bowlers ruthlessly. By the time Ramdin was forced to use Lendl Simmons, the game was clearly slipping away. And when Ballance hoisted Simmons for two sixes in the 16th over, only 31 were left to get in the last four overs. Rampaul’s one remaining over was too few to make a difference.
Rain ruins game after T&T make 181: The inconsequential game between Trinidad & Tobago and Uva Next, both of whom were already eliminated, was rained out after T&T posted a strong 181 for 3. The two men who were at the centre of T&T’s batting resurgence on Wednesday, Denesh Ramdin and Darren Bravo, were among the runs in the game against Uva as well to muscle their side to what was comfortably the highest score of the qualifying stage.
Unlike yesterday, Bravo and Ramdin were given a platform to build on. Against Yorkshire, T&T’s top three had been dismissed within three overs, but today William Perkins began with a series of powerful lofted extra-cover shots to score at over two-runs-a-ball, and Lendl Simmons was slightly more controlled than his swing-at-everything avatar yesterday. By the time Simmons fell in the 10th over, T&T had motored to 86 for 3, bringing together Ramdin and Bravo.
The pair began a bit cautiously but soon opened out, making sure that each of the final six overs went for ten or more. Uva had five bowlers with international experience but only Andrew McDonald was taken for less than eight an over. There have been questions raised over Ramdin batting as high as No. 5, but he has put them to rest with successive half-centuries.
It may be a huge total but T&T suffered against Yorkshire due to a lack of depth in their bowling. To compound matters, they left out their two best bowlers from this dead rubber; Ravi Rampaul and Samuel Badree were on the bench, which meant Uva weren’t out of the game yet despite facing a tall target.
The chase got off to the worst possible start as Dilshan Munaweera upper-cut a catch to third man off the first ball of the innings. The drizzle then intensified and forced the players off the field, and the Johannesburg storm did not ease up in time for the game to resume.
