Tony Becca

The Super League, Jamaica's semi-pro cricket tournament, is one round short of the end of its first season, and already the St Catherine Saints of Chedwin Park are celebrating and deservedly so.

With one match to go against last year's cup winners St Elizabeth, the Saints boast an unassailable 25 points. After stumbling at the start when they dropped first innings points to Manchester Lions in the opening round, they recovered nicely and defeated Kingston Tigers then picked up first innings points from the Jamaica Defence Force Army Brigades. After defeating Westmoreland Wizards and Trelawny Buccaneers, they led Melbourne Kangaroos on first innings. Apart from turning up on Saturday, all that is left for them to do is to lift the trophy and to pocket the first prize of $1 million.

Led by Tamar Lambert, with batsmen like Danza Hyatt, Keith Hibbert, Junior Stewart, Dean Morgan, and Shacoya Thomas, plus Lambert himself, and most importantly, with a bowling attack of pacers Andre Russell and Oneil Richards, right-arm leg-spinners Odean Brown and Gavin Wallace, and off-spinner Bevan Brown, the Saints paraded a strong team.

After stumbling at the first hurdle, they did justice to their strength as they steamrolled the opposition while chalking up three of the four victories in the tournament.

Maybe if it was necessary for them so to do, the Saints could have made it four out of five over the weekend.

On Saturday, with 22 points in the bag, with Melbourne Kangaroos six points behind them in second place, and with many expecting a fight, St Catherine Saints went to Melbourne Oval, scored 72 off the first seven or eight overs, blasted 465 runs and picked up a wicket in the last over of the day. Then, on Sunday, they nailed the Kangaroos and their touted batting team for 136 with their last four wickets falling without the addition of one single run.

Undefeated century

Tamar Lambert, captain of St Catherine Saints. - file

With first innings points enough for them, with their hands on the trophy, with nothing to gain by enforcing the follow-on, St Catherine, as if to rub salt into the Kangaroos' wound, went back to bat and chipped to 245 for three with Morgan and Thomas racing to an undefeated century each.

With batsmen like Marlon Samuels, Donovan Pagan, Carlton Baugh Jr, and Andre McCarty, plus Damion Henry, Dwayne Thompson, Yanick Elliott, and Damion Jacobs, Melbourne were expected to put up a fight.

Instead they fell like lambs before St. Catherine's trio of spin bowlers - and especially so to Wallace whose leg-spinners and googlies spun and bounced off the responsive pitch and cut them down one by one.

In nine overs, the man considered by many the best right-arm leg-spinner in the country, picked up six wickets while conceding a mere 19 runs.

Good bowling attack

Looking back at the match, it would be interesting to hear why the Melbourne captain, the Melbourne management again left out their two main pace bowlers and especially left-hander Leon Bent and against St Catherine and Hyatt at that. Also, why in a match in which the conditions of play call for a minimum of 100 overs a day, in a match in which St Catherine's batsmen were hitting the ball to and over the boundary with ease, did Melbourne bowl as many as 116.3 overs in the day less 20 minutes.

Most importantly, however, is this: why, in a match from which they could not realistically hope to get anything but first innings points, Melbourne won the toss and decided to bat? They did this, despite possessing only one good bowler in Nikita Miller while St Catherine paraded a good bowling attack - including three really good spin bowlers.

By bowling first, Melbourne not only handed St Catherine's useful batting team first use of a good pitch against a weak bowling attack, but also sentenced their own batsmen to batting second on a bare pitch against a trio of good, attacking spin bowlers - one of whom was capable of getting the ball to spin, both ways, to bounce awkwardly, and who did just that.

The result was that St Catherine's batsmen enjoyed themselves, and so too did their bowlers.

When everything is said and done, however, the Saints were the best team throughout. After the first round, they was always the team to catch, and none was good enough.