GEORGETOWN – Kyle Mayers came of age with a purposeful all-round performance to trump a half-century from Jason Mohammed and led Combined Campuses & Colleges (CCC) to a stunning five-wicket victory over Trinidad and Tobago in the Regional Super50 yesterday.
The 19-year-old Mayers, a member of the West Indies Under-19 side that recently visited India, stroked a vital 40 not out that helped the CCC successfully chase 174 for victory in their Group B match at the Everest Cricket Club.
Mayers, the Man Of The Match, drove Sherwin Ganga to long on and past diving West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo for a boundary to formalize the result.
The teenaged Barbadian all-rounder had captured two wickets for 32 runs from seven overs with his steady medium-fast bowling, as Mohammed stroked a defiant 77 to lead a T&T revival, helping them to a respectable 173 for nine from their allocation of 50 overs after they were sent in to bat.
The result meant that CCC got four points, placing them second in the group, four points behind Jamaica, and leaving T&T to mull over how things went so awry at the start of another Super50 tournament.
CCC face the Jamaicans tomorrow at the same venue in their second group match, at the same time T&T meet joint defending champions Leewards at the Guyana National Stadium.
CCC began their reply in fine style. Miles Bascombe hit three fours and one six in the top score of 45 and their captain Romel Currency supported with 31.
They put on 76 for the first wicket inside the first 20 overs, but Rayad Emrit bowled Currency in the 21st over, and there was a considerable slowing down of the scoring.
Nicholas Alexis was a familiar foe for T&T and they removed him for a duck and followed up with the scalp of Bascombe, as CCC sunk to 86 for three in the 27th over.
Floyd Reifer used his experience to score an unbeaten 34 and with Nekoli Parris carried CCC past the 100-run threshold before disaster struck with two wickets falling rapidly.
Parris was stumped off Sherwin Ganga for nine and Ryan Wiggins was run out for a duck, when he wandered out his crease after turning a delivery from the same bowler to mid-wicket, where a lurking Emrit fired his return to wicketkeeper Stephen Katwaroo. (CMC)
