Tony Becca
THE SUPREME Ventures Super Cup cricket competition moves into its fourth round tomorrow and, while it is too early to predict who the winner will be, the race for the title and the $500,000 first prize appears to be between St. Catherine CC, Melbourne and Kingston CC.
After dropping first-innings points to Kingston CC in the first round, St. Catherine defeated defending champions Manchester and Lucas and are now on 13 points - three ahead of Melbourne who lead Kingston by one point after leading Manchester on first innings, losing first-innings points to Westmoreland and defeating St. Mary.
With six rounds to go, however, there is still time for teams like JDF - eight, Manchester - seven, and St. Elizabeth - seven, to recover, and especially so Manchester who, after scoring 423 in reply to Melbourne's 455 for six declared, after surprisingly falling for 63 and 108 against St. Catherine, nailed Westmoreland by an innings and 60 runs and are tied with St. Elizabeth on seven points.
While the race for the title is interesting, so too are some of the results. In fact, although they underline the inconsistency of the country and the region's cricket, some of them have been simply amazing and inexplicable.
EMBARRASSED
After replying strongly to Mel-bourne's massive score at Melbourne Oval - to the point where they scared the daylights out of the Melbourne fans, Manchester, for example, went to Chedwin Park and were embarrassed in both innings. They then went to Allan Rae Oval and rattled up 345 for five declared.
Following their impressive 407 at home against Lucas, Kingston CC went to Alpart and, after scoring 188, after they were set a victory target of 143, were sliding at 48 for six despite the presence of former West Indies batsmen James Adams and Roland Holder; and after scoring 268 at home against Melbourne, Westmoreland, also playing at home, were bundled out for 107 and 179 by Manchester.
What has been really been interesting so far this season, however, is the performance of spin bowlers.
In a season in which Melbourne have scored 455 for six declared and 268 off 43.4 overs, Manchester 423, Kingston CC 407, St. Elizabeth 381 for five declared, Manchester 346 for five declared, and St. Catherine 333 for nine declared, a season in which one batsman has scored an undefeated double century and in which, after three matches, 10 others have scored a century each, spin bowlers have nevertheless been dominating the action - to the extent that of the 15 times that five wickets or more have been taken in an innings, 13 of them have gone to spin bowlers.
The two fast bowlers on the list are Stephen Patterson of Manchester, who bagged six for 40 against St. Catherine, and Leon Bent of Melbourne, who picked up five for 103 against Westmoreland.
FIGURES
Starting with left-hander Nikita Miller who returned figures of five for 91 against Manchester, the spin bowlers on the list are offspinner Delroy Morgan of Lucas with five for 13 against JDF; legspinner Odean Brown of St. Catherine - six for 50 against Kingston; offspinner Nehemiah Perry - six for 42 against St. Catherine; offspinner Bevan Brown of St. Catherine - six for 20 against Manchester; Odean Brown - five for 27 against Manchester, left-arm spinner Carl Brissett of Portland - seven for 44 against St. Mary; offspinner Ramon Hutchinson of Melbourne - six for 21 against St. Mary; left-arm spinner André Dwyer of Manchester - six for 32 and six for 44 against Westmoreland; Bevan Brown - five for 36 and five for 36 against Lucas; and Brissett with six for 45 against JDF.
The dominance of spin bowlers in Jamaica's cricket is nothing new, however, and the question is this: despite the fact that Jerome Taylor, Daren Powell, Jermaine Lawson and Dwight Washington have all represented the West Indies in the past year, that Andrew Richardson is representing the West Indies A team, and that there is no Jamaican spinner in contention for any of the two regional teams, is it that Jamaica's spin bowlers are better than their fast bowlers or is it that Jamaica's batsmen are weak against spin?
