Dalton Laing, Gleaner Writer

Retreat Cricket Club completed the double by winning the two Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) Westmoreland Cricket Association (WCA) competitions. On both occasions, retreat defeated Paradise Cricket Club.

When the Twenty-20 competition came to a close on Easter Sunday at the Belle Isle playfield Retreat, after winning the toss, opted to bat and scored 113 for eight with Ewan Andrews top scoring with 24. Ziggy Levy of Paradise took three wickets for 17 runs.

Paradise could not reach the target, falling short by 10 runs after nine wickets fell and the 20 overs expired. The top batsmen for Paradise were Roal Wynter who made 23 and Omar Watson, 20. Ewan Andrews, three for 14, Paul Palmer three for 27 and Lorenzo Ingram, two for 20, were the top bowlers for Retreat.

In the third place play-off, 84 runs by Dwayne Kerr led Frome to a 25-run victory over Police Cricket Club. Frome totaled 160 for seven wickets, a score that could not be bettered by the Police team which made only 135 for five. Dwayne Evans 52 and Sasha Marley Barrett 35 were the top batsmen for Police.

The competition followed the 40-overs competition which the SCJ and the WCA have been running for three years. At the end of that series the organisers decided to extend the season with a Twenty20 component.

According to Aston Smith, vice-president of operations for SCJ, Frome, the idea for the competition came through Cleveland Keddo, president of the WCA and was designed to have a proper cricket competition running in Westmoreland, and also to use it as a mechanism to educate the general public on the importance of putting an end to the illicit burning of sugar cane.