Sanson .. 5 for 56 By Tony Becca,
Senior Sport Editor
JAMAICA finished their assignments in the preliminary
round of the Busta cricket series in style at Jarrett Park yesterday with a comfortable victory over the West Indies B.
Pulling out all the stops after a disappointing first day when they won the toss and elected to bat, Jamaica crowned a memorable recovery when they defeated the young West Indians by 166 runs 16 minutes after lunch on the final day of the four-day contest.
Final score: Jamaica 129 and 425 without loss declared, West Indies B 184 and 204 batting two short with Andrew Gonzalves and Jermaine Lawson on the injured list Jamaica's victory, however, as commanding as it was in the end, was tempered by the disappointment of their failure to win the Busta Cup - symbol of regional supremacy.
Going into the final match of the preliminary round with Guyana and Barbados on 45 points and the Leeward Islands on 42, Jamaica, on 39, needed to win the match in order to have a chance of winning the Busta Cup. Unfortunately for the defending champions, although they accomplished their mission, even though victory won them a place in the semi-finals of the Busta International Shield, it was not enough to retain the Cup.
Resuming on 79 for three, still 292 runs short of the 371 required for victory and the odds against them on a pitch which, with a few deliveries keeping low, hinted from the previous afternoon that it would be difficult for batting, the West Indies B ran into an aggressive Audley Sanson who finished with the wonderful figures of five for 56 off 16.5 overs, were rocked with the loss of two early wickets and folded without a fight.
Based on his class as one of the region's batting stars during his younger days, his experience, and three superb strokes on the previous afternoon, captain Richie Richardson was the West Indies B's best, probably only hope of denying Jamaica or even making a fight of it.
After a sweep to the long-leg boundary off left-arm spinner Ryan Cunningham, however, and a lovely pull to the wide long-on boundary off the pacer, the 39-year-old Richardson was on his way - the batsman going back to Sanson in the fourth over of the morning and leg before wicket to a delivery that kept low.
That was 90 for four after 10 minutes, and seven runs later Sanson made it 97 for five when left-hander Zaheer Ali played tentatively forward and was brilliantly caught by Leon Garrick diving to his left at forward short-leg.
Tonito Willette, the son of former West Indies left-arm spinner Elquemedo Willette, reeled off two lovely offside drives off pacer Darren Powell, before he hit across a full toss from offspinner Nehemiah Perry and was leg before wicket at 128 for six.
At that stage, with all their main batsmen gone, with the target an improbable if not impossible 243 runs away, the writing was on the wall for the West Indies B - their dream of another ambush, this time by their batsmen, all but totally destroyed.
Before it was over, however, left-handers Wayne Phillip and Sulieman Benn, probably deciding that they were not going down without a fight, treated the fans with some lusty hitting. Phillip, the standby wicketkeeper during the West Indies tour of England last year, struck four fours and one six - over wide long-on off Perry -before he stretched forward to Cunningham bowling over the wicket and was bowled out of the rough, on the stroke of lunch, for 40 at 187 for seven.
FINAL STANDINGS
| P | W | L | D | Pts |
| Barbados | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 57 |
| Guyana | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 57 |
| England A | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 54 |
| Jamaica | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 51 |
| Leeward Islands | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 48 |
| T& T | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 38 |
| West Indies B | 7 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 20 |
| Windward Islands | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
