Sunday, February 10 2008

LENDL SIMMONS’ rich vein of form with the bat continued as he followed up on his aggressive knock of 82 on Thursday night with yet another majestic innings.

This time he struck the identical score to power the national team to a 110-run victory against CLICO Preysal in a Twenty20 practice match at the Inshan Ali Ground in Preysal yesterday.

Simmons and opener William Perkins batted well together as they posted a huge partnership with Perkins chipping in with 29. Dwayne Bravo who hit 60 in the last trial match was the only other TT batsman to get among the runs scoring 19 as the TT team posted a competitive 177 for nine in 20 overs to give themselves a good chance of victory.

Barbadian Ryan Hurley was the main wicket-taker for Preysal bowling his right-arm off spin as he took five for 27 while Veeshan Jagessar took three for 19.

The Preysal batsmen were never in contention as the TT bowlers led by an inspired performance by West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo rout them for 63 to complete an emphatic victory with Bravo grabbing three wickets for 12 runs with his nagging accuracy.

But it was the spinners who did the major damage for TT, bamboozling the Preysal batsmen. Bowling his left-arm “Chinaman” Dave Mohammed snared two for four runs and Samuel Badree took two wickets for seven runs with his flat leg-break bowling.

The duo crippled the Preysal reply and look set to play a crucial role in TT’s Stanford Twenty20 campaign.

Guyanese batsman Azeemul Haniff hit 18 runs for Preysal while Ahmed Mohammed scored 14 in a losing effort as the other batsmen capitulated under the pressure of chasing TT’s big total.

The TT team has won all their practice matches as they prepare for their next match in the Stanford Twenty20 Tournament against St Vincent and the Grenadines on February 13.