Rain, which plagued the earlier stages of the tournament, returned yesterday to make its unwelcome presence felt and forced the rescheduling of the final of the BNB RightStart Sir Everton Weekes Under-13 Competition to today at Kensington Oval.
The match had just about reached its halfway stage when the showers came, with Combermere, the defending champions, on 137-7 off 34.1 off the allotted 35 overs.
Once the skies cleared, however, according to umpires Andrew Watson and Lionel Rogers, not enough time would have been available for there to be a restart by 4 p.m. that would have allowed for Alexandra to chase a revised target in a minimum of 15 overs.
After winning the toss and electing to field in their first trip to the final, Alexandra’s bowlers ran into the rampant bat of opener Shian Brathwaite who announced himself by smacking the first delivery of the match to the point boundary on the way to an entertaining half-century.
The 11-year-old right-hander brought up the landmark with a sweetly-timed drive through the covers, his ninth boundary in an hour at the crease.
He was eventually the third batsman dismissed, his authoritative 57 coming out of a total of 81, as Alexandra, led by left-arm spinners Joshua Bishop and Keemar Burrowes, launched a fightback in the latter part of the innings.
Skipper Burrowes, a rare chinaman and googly bowler, took 2-27 but it was the orthodox Bishop with remarkable figures of 7-4-6-2 who mainly strangled Combermere’s batsmen.
However, it was because of the vagaries of the weather and, to some extent, tardiness in having the covers removed, that this year’s champions will be decided today when the game is replayed at noon.
If there is a no-decision at the end of today’s scheduled play, the title will be shared.
