Trinidad and Tobago U19 women lift Rising Stars crown

TRINIDAD and Tobago Under-19 women’s teams defeated the Windward Islands by 37 runs to win the inaugural West Indies Rising Stars 30-Over Championship title at Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Ground in St Augustine on Saturday.

Djenaba Joseph’s stellar knock of 43 and a match-winning spell of 3/11 from skipper Shalini Samaroo saw the hosts better Windwards in the trophy match.

Batting first, TT opener Joseph was the only standout with the bat while number ten batter Aniaya Roberts (11) was the only other to get within double digits. Samaroo scored one run but made up for it later on.

They were dismissed for 106 from 28.5 overs.

Windwards pacer Aniah Gilbert topped the bowling with 4/19 from 3.5 overs while Selena Ross bagged 2/12 from five.

Set a target of 107 for victory, Windwards’ had a good start from opener Zaida James (25) and Janeillia Glasgow (12).

Samaroo however, got the better of James, trapping her leg-before, and when Glasgow fell, Windwards collapsed.

The TT skipper, fellow off-spinner Samara Ramnath (2/12), Joseph (1/9), KD Jazz Mitchell (1/16) and Kirk Manpaul (1/17) did well to restrict Windwards and have them removed for 69 in 27 overs.

On the victory, Samaroo was elated. After last year’s runner-up finish, losing out to the USA in the 50-Over final at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba, she was happy to be back to winning ways.

“After that heartbreak last year with USA coming and beating us in our hometown. This year we just stuck to a few targets and what we wanted for ourselves. We maintained those and they were good enough to go all the way,” Samaroo said.

The transitioning Samaroo, who played her last U19 tournament for TT and now heads to the senior division, said despite underperforming with the bat, she tasted sweet revenge with the ball.

She said the team played as a unit throughout the tournament and were duly rewarded with the title.

“Yes we made it to a final but that didn’t hamper us from sticking to our goals for this tournament. Yes, we got restricted to a low score, I’d say it was a low score because we wanted more than that.

“And then we know we had to come hard with the bowling. And with the bowling we had, we knew they wouldn’t better us. We just had to bowl wicket to wicket and that total was up.”

Reflecting on the season, Samaroo added, “Each game was a learning experience and we just wanted to learn and grow from each other. We just looked back on the past performances from each game and we tried to improve as we go along.”

The TT team was coached by Gibran Mohammed.

In the third place playoff at the National Cricket Centre in Couva, Guyana emerged winners by five wickets over Jamaica.

Jamaica batted first and got to 120/6 from the shortened 25-over affair. In reply, Guyana successfully chased down the target and got to 122/5 from 20.3 overs.

Additionally, Barbados placed fifth after defeating the Leeward Islands by nine wickets courtesy of the Duckworth-Lewis (DLA) method.

Leewards batted first and got to 91/9 from 30 overs.

In their turn at the crease, Barbados got to 67/1 after 13 overs, before the DLS was implemented, which gave Leewards the victory.